Ohana
by sugah66
Summary: Enterprise gets stuck in a midspace dampening field. Third in a series, following Adjusting. AU. COMPLETE.
1. Dead Stop

**TITLE: The Kamea Chronicles, Part 3: 'Ohana  
AUTHOR: Sugah Sugah  
SUMMARY: _Enterprise_ gets stuck in a mid-space dampening field.  
SPOILERS: Through "Home" (season 4, episode 3)  
RATING: T -- mostly for language.****  
****DISCLAIMER: I am in no way affiliated with Paramount. I'm not making any profit. I don't own Star Trek, except for books and DVDs, and a really cool Malcolm doll that I found for like 2 dollars, because the toy store was going out of business. He has interchangable hands and everything, so that he can hold different stuff. It's super cool. What was I saying? Oh, right, don't sue. Because then you'd take my Malcolm doll, and I'd have to cry. And you don't want to see me cry. Not a pretty sight.  
****AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is third installment in The Kamea Chronicles, following "The One and Only" and "Adjusting". I'd read those before reading this, but that's just me. I don't know, maybe you like to be confused. Some people do.  
****And I promise that this story will have slightly more of a plot than the previous two. Stuff actually happens! Yay, exciting.  
****Many props to the internet, for helping me translate English into Hawaiian.  
****Oh, and for those who read the first two, I got sick of trying to write Trip's southern accent. Y'ins know how he sounds. So give me a break.  
****_Kanapapiki_ - son of a bitch  
****EDIT: All books of the chronicles have been "updated" to include stardate, so you can follow the timeline of the series better.**

* * *

**The Kamea Chronicles**

**Part Three: **_'**Ohana**_

**"_'Ohana_ means family. Family means nobody gets left behind. Or forgotten." - _Lilo and Stitch_**

_Captain's Log:_

_Stardate: May 29, 2154_

_With Kamea officially on board for an indeterminate amount of time, I have unofficially assigned her to engineering, where for the past two or more weeks, she has been assisting Commander Tucker in his attempts to upgrade the warp drive and increase the warp capabilities of our engine. According to Kamea, it is completely possible and will simply take a bit of tinkering, which is Commander Tucker's favorite pasttime._

_Unfortunately, their past several attempts have not been successful._

_

* * *

_Trip Tucker ran a hand through his hair as he surveyed the repairs done after the most recent explosion had once again damaged his precious engines. For the past two-and-a-half weeks, he'd been trying to recalibrate the warp drive, hoping that he could squeeze some more speed out of the engines, but everything he tried resulted in an explosion that crippled Enterprise for hours at a time, until he and his team managed to get the engines back online. 

"It's not a day in engineering unless something explodes," Trip said quietly, crouching down to examine the indentions the blast had made in the deck plating.

"I'm next," said a voice behind Trip, and he turned to find Kamea limping towards him. She was covered in cuts and bruises – more so than the rest of the crew, because every time something blew, she rushed to contain the explosion. She'd managed to save the ship from several hull breeches, but she always ended up in sickbay looking like she'd just been mauled by a pissed-off Klingon. As if there were any other kind. "What happened, anyway?"

Trip gave her a sheepish grin. "I purged the impulse manifolds."

She looked at him, her blue eyes wide. "Without stabilizing the thrusters? Are you trying to get us all killed?"

He shrugged and returned his attention to the deck plating, where various engine parts had been imbedded in the floor due to the ferocity of the blast. Despite all his best efforts, he'd been unable to pull them out. "It seemed like a good idea, in theory."

Kamea snorted and crouched beside him. "So is Communism." She yanked a particularly large piece of tubing out of the floor and nearly toppled over as a result. "So what now?"

Trip sighed and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Maybe we should take a break. Everyone's been pulling double shifts just to get us back to normal."

Kamea nodded thoughtfully. "Couldn't hurt. And we should get to T'Pol to double-check the calculations before we try again."

"Are you two talking now?" Trip asked, unable to hide a smile. T'Pol hadn't exactly taken to Kamea's presence at first, but Kamea had been on _Enterprise_ more than a month now, and T'Pol showed signs of warming up to the girl.

"If you can call it that," Kamea said. She got down on her hands and knees and reached for another piece of debris. "She's not ignoring me, if that's what you mean." After several quick tugs, Kamea managed to free the metal from its entrapment in the floor. She handed it to Trip. "But when I said that we should have her look at the calculations, I meant you."

Trip stood, and Kamea followed suit, though she winced a bit and rested most of her weight on her right leg. "How're you doing?" Trip asked.

She shrugged nonchalantly. "Fine. Why don't you go get some sleep, and I'll see if I can clean up down here."

He would have gladly taken her up on the offer – he hadn't slept in almost three days – if she hadn't looked just as exhausted as he did. In fact, she looked dead on her feet. "You look like you could use a nap, too."

Kamea shook her head. "Nah. I'll just give the engine a once over. Everyone's beat, and there's bound to be mistakes."

She made to walk past him, but he grabbed her by the wrist before she could go too far. "Kamea, you're just as tired as the rest of us."

She glared at him but made no move to extricate herself from his grip. "I'll be fine, Commander."

He rolled his eyes. At first she'd used the term as a sign of respect, and then she did it to maintain decorum in front of the crew, but she didn't call him "commander" when it was just the two of them unless she was pissed at him. And he knew that she was angry because he was bringing up a very sore subject – her inability to sleep. He tried to convince her to take something – to get a sedative, to do neuro-pressure, anything to help her sleep – but she stubbornly refused each suggestion.

"You're not fine," he said. "You're dead Vulcan walking. I want you to go to Phlox right now and ask him for something to help you sleep. You can't do this much longer. You'll explode."

"Better me than the engines."

Trip tightened his grip on her wrist, and she winced. "That's not funny."

Kamea sighed in exasperation. "I guarantee you that Phlox doesn't have anything strong enough. Did sedatives help you after your sister died?"

He released her wrist, folding his arms defiantly across his chest. When Kamea brought up Lizzie, it meant that she was about to start an argument. "For a while."

"I'm fine. I'll be fine. I just need – "

"Don't you dare say meditation," Trip said. His words came out in a growl, and though Kamea looked surprised at the harsh tone of his voice, her eyes were still hard. "You Vulcans and your damn meditation. Meditation isn't the same as sleeping."

Kamea stiffened and took a step towards him, which he knew meant that she was about to let him have it, but before she could say anything, she froze and took a huge step back. Trip felt something cloud his mind, and he turned to find T'Pol walking towards them.

Trip had been able to sense T'Pol's presence for a while now. At first, he didn't realize that's what it was, but after a while he'd figured it out. It came in handy, sometimes, if he was looking for her and no one seemed to know where she was. He'd asked Kamea about it but she hadn't said anything except that it was none of her business, and T'Pol had finally stopped glaring at her, so she wasn't about to butt in. Trip had visited the ship's library on more than one occasion, but he didn't know what he was looking for, so he didn't know where to find it. And T'Pol wasn't talking, either. But he knew that she knew what was going on.

"Am I interrupting?" T'Pol asked. Trip could tell she was suspicious.

Kamea quickly shook her head. "No. I was just about to go ascertain the effectiveness of the repairs. Everyone's exhausted, and there were probably mistakes."

T'Pol nodded curtly. "A logical decision."

Kamea turned to go but Trip reached out and grabbed her wrist again. This time, she did attempt to pull free, and though Trip knew that she could have dislocated his shoulder if she really wanted to, she didn't put up all that much of a fight. It was probably just for show. "T'Pol, would you please tell Kamea that meditation doesn't make up for lack of sleep?"

T'Pol blinked once before speaking. "Actually, Commander, studies have proven that – "

Trip groaned as loudly as possibly, successfully interrupting T'Pol. "You two are unbelievable! I swear it's like you plan these things." He whirled to face Kamea. "All right. You go do whatever you were going to do, but when you're done, you're going to see Phlox if I have to carry you there myself. Got me?"

Kamea wrenched her arm free of his grasp in one swift movement. "Fine."

When she was gone, Trip turned to T'Pol. "You know, you could have helped me out. She's dead on her feet. She isn't going to last much longer if she keeps this pace up."

T'Pol raised a beautifully sculpted eyebrow. "Commander, Kamea's decision to sleep is hers and hers alone. You cannot force her to do something."

Trip's eyebrows shot into his hairline. "Really? So when you were on me to sleep after the Xindi attacked _Enterprise_, you were just overstepping your bounds?" T'Pol shifted, and he could sense that she was uncomfortable. He didn't know how he knew, he just knew. "I'm concerned, is all. She isn't going to be much use to me if she collapses from exhaustion."

"Kamea's insomnia is not my concern. Yours, however, as chief engineer, would have affected the entire ship. As first officer, it was my duty to ensure that you were healthy."

Trip regarded her curiously for a minute, certain that there was something that she wasn't telling him. He could almost feel her wiggling into his brain. "Is that the only reason?"

T'Pol hesitated – just for a moment, but Trip noticed all the same. "What other reason would there be?"

Before Trip could respond, the ship gave an almighty lurch, sending both Trip and T'Pol to the ground. Trip tried to stand, but the shaking continued, making it impossible to do anything but crouch on the floor.

"What the hell was that?" he asked. "Kamea? What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" Kamea's response came from somewhere on Trip's left. He crawled in the direction of her voice, but the ship lurched again, throwing Trip off balance and into the wall. "It's something from the outside! The engine is trying to compensate!"

"Well, it ain't working!" Trip said with a wince,rubbing his shoulder.He began to set out again, when suddenly the overhead lights exploded in a shower of sparks, sending the engine room into complete and utter darkness.

"_Kanapapiki!_" said Kamea's disembodied voice, as _Enterprise_ shuddered to a stop.

A dead stop.

Trip counted to ten, waiting for the emergency lights to come on, so that he could at least see what he was doing and start trying to figure out what the hell had happened. He had the feeling that – despite her insistence to the contrary – Kamea had something to do with this. But the emergency lights never came on, leaving the engine room as black as death.


	2. Blackout

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Y'ins guys rock!**

**_Kuamuamu_ - damn**

**Going off my diagram of _Enterprise_ that I got in my 2005 calendar, that's how I got the emergency hatch in the captain's ready room, although I really can't tell where it is, that's what it looks like.**

* * *

Jonathan Archer had no idea what the hell was going on with his ship. The first time the ship had lurched, he thought they were under attack, but his tactical officer informed him that hull plating was holding, and there were no other ships on the sensors. When it happened again, Archer expressed concern that they had hit something. He distinctly heard Malcolm grumble something about "bloody minefields", but Mr. Mayweather had announced that space was clear – no obstacles whatsoever. As the ship continued to shake, Archer tried to contact engineering to see if it was an internal problem – again – but as he went to the com panel, the power suddenly went out.

"Do you think Commander Tucker had another accident?" Travis asked. Archer heard his voice, but could only make out his outline in the dim light.

Archer scrubbed his face with both hands and groped blindly for his chair. "I don't know, Travis. Let's hope not."

He tried the com panel, even though he knew it wouldn't work. He wanted to talk to someone in engineering so that he could find out what was going on – he would have preferred to talk to Trip, but he would have even settled for Kamea. According to Trip, it was only due to Kamea's…gifts…that the ship had not yet exploded, but Archer was still reluctant to trust her. But he needed to speak to someone – anyone. He didn't like not knowing what was going on with his ship.

"So are we just supposed to sit here?" Malcolm asked, and Archer could tell by the tone of his voice that he was irritated.

Archer sighed and cautiously dropped into his chair. "I don't think there's anything else we can do, Malcolm."

"Bollocks," Malcolm said. Archer heard him get to his feet and feel his way across the bridge to the turbo lift. Then, apparently, Malcolm punched the call button several times. When nothing happened, Malcolm kicked the door and uttered a few muffled curse words. Then he stumbled his back to his station and said, "Sir, the turbo lift isn't working."

* * *

Archer didn't like feeling helpless, but that's exactly what he was. _Enterprise_ had arrived at a dead stop, and he had no idea why. He, Malcolm, Travis, and Hoshi had already determined that they hadn't been attacked, nor had they hit any stray objects in space. But with the power still out, he was unable to contact engineering to learn whether or not Trip and his team had run into more…complications…with their experiments.

He allowed Trip to continue with his tests because Archer also wanted to increase _Enterprise's_ speed, but the ship had been practically crippled three times in as many weeks, and Archer was beginning to dread each new trial. He was ready to tell Trip to cut it out – even though he knew how much Trip would protest. But they were defenseless, drifting in space without power – no electricity, no sensors, no communications, no life support. In another few hours, they would all be dead.

Meanwhile, Malcolm and Travis had taken apart the helm station in an attempt to hotwire it, but Archer sensed they both knew it was useless. They, most likely, just needed to feel as if they were contributing, rather than just sitting on their asses – as Archer was doing.

"No," Malcolm's voice cut through the darkness, "if you touch those two wires together, you'll be electrocuted."

"Lieutenant," Travis said, "there's no electricity running through the wires."

"You don't want to take any chances, Ensign."

"We have to do something, sir. We're going to asphyxiate if we don't fix life support soon."

"Don't you think I know that?"

Archer was about to tell them to shut up when Hoshi suddenly spoke. "Do you hear that?"

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor near the captain's chair, but she stood up and looked around, obviously searching for the source of the phantom noise.

"You're hearing things, Hoshi," said Travis.

"Yes," Malcolm said. "We're all just a bit paranoid at the moment."

But Archer had known Hoshi a long time, and her hearing was supersonic – almost as acute as T'Pol's. if she thought she heard something, then she heard something. "Hoshi?"

"It sounded like knocking," she said. She moved around the bridge, following the sound only she could hear. "Coming from inside the wall."

"Jolly good," said Malcolm. "It's whoever knocked out our power, coming to kill us." Archer heard movement in front of him, and guessed that Malcolm was shifting his position on the floor. "They always knock, you know. Right before they slice you up with a chainsaw."

"Shut up," Hoshi said. There was a pause, and then she said, "Sir."

Archer saw a shadow move in front of him as Hoshi crossed to the starboard side of the bridge. Then he heard her walk back towards his ready room. "Captain," she said, "I think it's coming from your ready room."

Before she could reach the entrance, something exploded. The force of the blast knocked Hoshi backwards, but she didn't seem to be hurt. Malcolm, Travis, and Archer scrambled towards her, but in the darkness, Archer could find his footing and tripped. He reached out to stop himself from falling but only succeeded in dragging Travis down with him.

"_Kuamuamu!_" Kamea's voice came from the floor of his ready room.

Malcolm, the only one still on his feet, reached the ready room first. "Kamea?"

"Didn't you hear me knocking?" she asked. "I had to blow the panel out from the wall to get out."

Then Archer remembered the emergency hatch. It went all the way to G deck and passed right through main engineering, which was where Kamea must have been when the power went out. "Kamea," Archer said, "what happened?"

"How the hell should I know?" Kamea asked. "Trip sent me up here to find out the same thing." There was a pause, and Archer heard muffled shuffling, which he assumed was Kamea getting to her feet. "He and T'Pol are trying to get the backup systems to kick on, and I'm supposed to try and get the com working."

"You think you can fix it?" Travis asked, as Kamea confidently strode across the darkened bridge to the captain's chair.

She crouched on the floor and removed the panel. "Probably not. But it's better than listening to Trip and T'Pol arguing about what caused this."

"Do they have any theories?" Archer asked, wishing that he could talk to them. It felt as though he were without his right arm, with Trip and T'Pol down in engineering.

He could just make out what Kamea was doing, which didn't appear to be much. She obviously knew that any attempts to fix things were futile. "All we know for certain is that it was something on the outside. There's nothing wrong with the engines – they just aren't running."

Archer resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "It has to be an internal problem. There was nothing on the sensors."

Kamea glanced up at him. He could tell, because he could see her eyes gleaming in the darkness. "Captain, with all due respect, just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't there."

"You think it was cloaked?" Travis asked.

"I suppose that's always a possibility," said Malcolm. "A cloaked ship wouldn't show up on our sensors. But there wasn't any damage to _Enterprise_, other than the power relays."

"I'm telling you," Kamea said, "the relays are fine. They're in perfect working order. They just aren't working."

"Okay then," Archer said, and he had to bite his tongue to stop himself from calling her a name, "what do you think it was?"

"Well," said Kamea, "if I had to venture a guess, I'd say we just ran smack into a dampening field."

"A dampening field," Malcolm said. "Of course. That would explain why everything suddenly stopped working." There was a pause. "But dampening fields have to have a base – a planet. I've never heard of a mid-space dampening field before."

Kamea shrugged. "You asked me what I thought, and that's what I think. And if it is what I think it is, then we'd better come up with a plan fast, because we're never going to get our systems online if they're being jammed, and I'm not ready to die."


	3. A Plan

He really was infuriating. T'Pol had noticed it before, of course, but he had become even more so, if that was even possible. Perhaps it was the situation, and the knowledge that if they could not fix whatever the nonexistent problem was in the next few hours, they were all going to die of asphyxiation. Perhaps it was his lack of sleep. Perhaps he was just annoyed with her. But whatever the reason, Commander Tucker was beginning to grate on her last nerve.

He had wedged himself in the Jeffries tube, determined to find the root of the problem, though T'Pol believed that there was nothing wrong with anything on _Enterprise_. They were obviously caught in some kind of dampening field that was rendering their electronic equipment useless. Commander Tucker, on the other hand, was convinced that Kamea had done something to the engine and – after ordering Kamea to go find out if they had hit something – began to storm through the engine room, checking all the systems.

She knew he was frustrated. They were all frustrated. It would be difficult to get out of their current situation when they weren't even certain what their current situation was. And whether or not he knew it, his frustration was feeding her sour mood, and in turn her mood was fueling his frustration. It was a vicious cycle, one that showed no signs of ending, and so T'Pol had decided to meditate in hopes of calming both herself and Trip down.

Kamea returned after an absence of approximately thirty minutes, sliding down the ladder. She walked over to T'Pol and raised her eyebrows upon seeing the commander's feet sticking out of the end of the tube.

"Did you learn anything?" T'Pol asked.

Kamea shook her head. "Sensors were clear before it happened, so we didn't hit anything. Malcolm says hull plating was holding, so we weren't attacked."

T'Pol nodded. She had suspected as much. She'd been on the bridge only minutes before the accident, and nothing had seemed out of the ordinary. "Dampening field?"

"Best guess," Kamea said. She crossed her arms. "Captain Archer disagrees."

T'Pol raised her eyebrows. She had expected that, as well. "It is the logical deduction."

Kamea nodded emphatically. "That's what I said." She rolled her eyes. "Humans."

"I heard that," Trip said, his voice muffled, as he was still in the tube. His feet began to move, and both T'Pol and Kamea moved so that he could pull himself free of the confines of the tube. When he was out, he glanced up at Kamea. "Were you able to fix the coms?"

She made a noise in the back of her throat. "No."

He narrowed his eyes. "Did you try?"

"Of course I tried," Kamea said. "But it's difficult to fix something with no power." She nodded at the tube. "What were you doing in there?"

He continued to glare at her as he got to his feet. "Trying to find out just what exactly you did to my engines."

Kamea sighed patiently. After the backup systems had failed to turn on, Trip had yelled at her for at least five minutes, and even T'Pol had felt he was treating her unfairly. It was obvious that there was nothing wrong with the engines. "I didn't do anything to your engines. But if it would make you feel better, would you like me to take a look?"

T'Pol could tell, from the look on Trip's face, that he did not want her anywhere near the engines, but as he had been unable to find the problem she had supposedly caused, he had no logical excuse to tell her no. He stepped back, allowing Kamea to climb into the tube. Once she had crawled inside, he turned to T'Pol. "What do you think happened?"

T'Pol stared at him, refusing to allow emotion to creep into her response. But she had already told him her opinion, and he hadn't listened to it. She took a deep breath and said, as calmly as she could, "We have somehow flown into a dampening field."

He scrubbed both hands over his face. "I'm starting to think that, too."

"Ow!" Kamea said.

Trip crouched by the end of the tube. "Did you cut yourself?"

"No," came Kamea's reply. She slid out of the tube. "Just got shocked, is all. Big one, too. I could see the lightning."

Trip nodded and stood, leaning against the bulkhead. T'Pol found herself focusing on Kamea's response. Static electricity was obviously unaffected by the dampening field. Would it be possible to somehow harness the static electricity and transform it into a power source? T'Pol was going over simple calculations in her head when she felt Trip's eyes on her.

"Would it work?"

She was momentarily startled, until she realized that he obviously overheard her musings in own mind. But he apparently thought she had spoken them out loud. Best to let him continue to think that, though if he could hear her thoughts, she would have to exercise more caution in his presence. "It is not impossible. We would only have to generate enough electricity to power life support functions."

Kamea cocked an eyebrow, glancing back and forth between Trip and T'Pol. For a brief moment, T'Pol feared that she would reveal her secret. But to her credit, Kamea didn't say anything.

Trip nodded, thoughtfully, and she could already sense him working through the problem. "Has it ever been done before?"

T'Pol shook her head. "Not to my knowledge. But our time is rather limited, and we are running out of options."

"I'll grab a couple of the guys and we'll get cracking," Trip said, turning and jogging off in the vague direction of the corridor.

When he was gone, Kamea looked at T'Pol. "Perhaps you'd like to explain what that was about?"

* * *

Malcolm was surprised when Kamea rejoined them on the bridge looking thoroughly disgruntled. When Archer demanded an account of what had happened in engineering, she informed him that Trip and T'Pol had devised a plan, but that she wasn't allowed to assist in implementing it, so they had sent her back to the bridge. She tried to explain the details of the plan, but the whole idea was so theoretical that Malcolm had a difficult time following her explanation. Something about harnessing static electricity and converting it into energy.

"Trip won't let me anywhere near the engines until I've had a good night's sleep," she said to Malcolm, in response to the questioning glance he'd given her. "Which means that I'll never be allowed back in engineering."

As there was little any of them could do except wait, Malcolm and Kamea had isolated themselves from the others. Kamea had collapsed into Malcolm's chair, and he stood behind her, leaning against the bulkhead. He scrutinized her; she was beginning to show signs of fatigue, and he knew that her difficulty sleeping was wearing her down. But she refused to discuss the situation with him, and she was absolutely adamant against seeing Phlox.

"Kamea," said Malcolm, leaning against his console so that he was speaking almost directly in her ear, "have you ever considered sedatives?"

She turned to look at him, and he was suddenly breathless with her close proximity. He moved to the other side of the console, so that there would be a physical barrier between them. It was getting harder and harder to control himself.

"I've already had this conversation with Trip," she said, with just a hint of bite in her voice. "Trust me, they wouldn't help." She lowered her head, resting it on her folded arms. "It's almost like my father is inside my brain, forcing me to repeatedly relive his death. I can't think of any other explanation."

He knelt in front of the console, mimicking her position. "Are you afraid to go to sleep?"

She glared at him. "Vulcans do not experience fear."

He didn't believe that for a minute. He had seen T'Pol afraid before – though he was certain she would deny it – but he knew that Vulcans had emotions, even if they didn't always display them. He just looked at Kamea, his eyebrows raised, waiting for her to respond.

After a while, she grunted and gazed at the ceiling. "You should talk. You're afraid of water."

He bristled, not at all pleased with the way she so quickly brushed off his deepest fear. Most fears were irrational, and even he couldn't deny that being afraid of water was a little silly, but she didn't have to be so indifferent about it. "It's called _aquaphobia_, and it's a legitimate fear."

She cocked an eyebrow. "It's not _aquaphobia_. It's _hydrophobia_. You can't confuse two roots like that."

Malcolm turned and slid along the console until he was sitting on the floor. "At least I'm not afraid of sleeping."

She stood up and leaned over the console, so that she was looking down at him. "It's called _somniphobia_, thank you very much." She paused. "And I only meant that being afraid of something general, such as water, is highly illogical. I mean, you're obviously not afraid of water itself, otherwise you wouldn't even drink it. You're obviously afraid of something about the water."

He clenched his jaw and defiantly stared at a spot in the darkness in the opposite direction, but she ignored him and continued. "If you're afraid of fish, it's _icthyophobia_. I've heard of people being afraid of waves, and that's _cymophobia_. Or there's the fear of floods, which is _antlophobia_. So which are you?"

He exhaled loudly through his nose and continued to stare at where T'Pol's station would have been, were the lights on. "If you must know," he said through clenched teeth, "I'm afraid of drowning."

"Ah," she said. "Then you have _praefocophobia_. Literally 'fear of suffocation'. Which is actually fascinating, when you think about it."

Curiosity got the better of him. He glanced up, only to find that Kamea had come around the console to sit on the floor beside him. He started at the sudden change in positions and became acutely aware of ever millimeter of space between the two of them. "What's fascinating?" he asked.

She lifted one shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug. "When you drown, you actually asphyxiate. And you live in space, where if you were to get caught outside the ship, you would also asphyxiate. And here we are now, with no life support, about to die in the same manner. But you're not afraid at all." She let her head fall back against the console. "Fascinating."

He opened his mouth to respond but could think of nothing, so instead he continued to stare across the bridge. In fact, when the lights came back on several minutes later, he didn't even realize that there was finally something in the space that he was staring at until Kamea abruptly stood up beside him and went to the other side of the console.

Malcolm got to his feet and leaned over to see what she was doing.

"Excellent," she said. "They had enough power to bring sensors back online." Her fingers moved swiftly over the controls, which Malcolm found intriguing, as he didn't think she'd ever been to the bridge before. "Let's see if I can bring up our last known coordinates."

It took her quite some time. By the time she actually managed to locate what she wanted, Trip and T'Pol had joined them on the bridge. Now everyone was crowded around Malcolm's console, watching Kamea work.

"That's it," Malcolm said, pointing. "This is the last reading I was able to take before the accident."

Kamea nodded and brought up the star charts.

"This area of space is not widely mapped," T'Pol said. "I do not believe the Vulcans have been out this far in many years."

Kamea suddenly groaned and let her head drop to the console with a thud. "And for good reason," she said, her voice muffled. She pushed herself up and swirled in the chair to face T'Pol, who stood beside her. "Ferengi."

* * *

**A/N: Yes, Ferengi! I know that they already dealt with the Ferengi, but I wanted to write a story with them in it just because I wanted to use this conversation that I thought up (which will be in the next section). I think it's funny, but then I have a habit of thinking something I write is funny when it really isn't. Perhaps I'm simply more easily amused than other people. (I'd put money on that.)**


	4. Scum

**A/N: I apologize for the following two things:**

**1) The length and basic crappiness of this chapter. It's been a while since I updated, and I wanted to get something up, but I wasn't finished with this chapter. I'm having problems getting to where I want to go, but I didn't want to leave y'ins in the lurch for much longer without an update.**

**2) The amount of time it took for me to update. My grandfather recently passed away and the past few weeks have been crazy. But hopefully I will be able to update with more reliability now.**

* * *

"What?" Malcolm asked.

Kamea nodded slightly, thinking that perhaps he had misunderstood her. "Ferengi."

Trip scratched his head. "Is that some kind of Vulcan swear word?" he asked, which was met by an icy glare from T'Pol. Trip shrugged apologetically and turned his attention back to Kamea.

She sighed and shook her head. "This area of space. It's Ferengi."

Malcolm furrowed his brow. "And the Ferengi would be…?"

Kamea rolled her eyes. She hadn't realized she would have to explain this. How could they not know about the Ferengi? They'd already encountered them once, and they were pretty difficult to forget. Kamea was positive she could still smell the latinum on her clothes. "Scum," she said. "The kind of scum that gives scum a bad name."

Trip made a noise in the back of his throat. "Well, that's encouraging."

Kamea arched an eyebrow but said nothing.

"You've dealt with them before?" Archer asked, leaning forward on the console so that he was almost nose-to-nose with Kamea.

She pulled back slightly. Though she was not as averse to touching as most Vulcans, the captain's frequent breeching of her personal space was unnerving. She nodded and said, "So have you."

Archer narrowed his eyes at her, as though trying to determine whether or not she was being truthful. "When?"

"December 17, 2151," Kamea said matter-of-factly, which elicited raised eyebrows from every member of the crew. She wasn't surprised. She doubted if any of them knew that she had read through – and memorized – the captain's old logs. "Though most of the crew was incapacitated. You see, the Ferengi generally render the crew of a starship unconscious with some kind of knockout gas and then proceed to pilfer anything valuable, which they sell."

"Those guys?" Trip asked. He groaned loudly. "Please tell me I'm not going to have to run around the ship in my underwear again."

Kamea raised her eyebrows. That was a story she was going to have to hear about later. "Not unless you want to."

Archer turned to Trip. "Power down anything unnecessary. We don't know how long we can continue with this alternate energy source, and we have no idea how we're going to get out of this dampening field." Trip nodded and headed for the emergency hatch in the captain's ready room. Archer looked at Malcolm. "Gather your men and the MACOs and start sweeping the ship. If you see any of these…Ferengi…shoot on sight."

Kamea opened her mouth to point out that the dampening field had most likely rendered the phase pistols useless, but Captain Archer had whirled to face her before she could speak. "You go with them," he said. "You've encountered these creatures before, and you might be able to negotiate us out of whatever we've gotten ourselves into."

She snorted. "Not likely." She was going to elaborate but was silenced by the glare the captain sent her way. "On my way, sir," she said, getting to her feet and trotting over to Malcolm.


	5. In the Darkened Corridors

**A/N: I am aware that this story doesn't follow canon, as the first recorded contact with Ferengi didn't happen until _TNG_. However, at this point in time, I really don't care. I've already started the story and I'm not about to stop now. Perhaps by the time I've finished I'll be able to think of an explanation as to why this contact wasn't mentioned. Perhaps by the time I've finished this chapter I'll have come up with an explanation. Perhaps I just thought of one and now can't wait to finish so that I can tell it. But for right now, just go with it. I really just wanted to write a story about the Ferengi. Quark is my favorite _DS9_ character. Don't know why.**

**Oh, also, I just got "The Complete Atlas of Star Trek", which will definitely be a big help in my writing! It's really cool, though it would be even cooler with a huge foldout map that I could put on my wall.**

* * *

"I don't like being unarmed," Malcolm said, as he and Kamea made their way to the torpedo bay. It was awkward going, without the turbo lifts, but Kamea managed to find all the emergency ladders and hidden access panels. Malcolm was quite impressed, actually, with the ease with which she was able to move about the ship. 

Kamea, who was several feet ahead of him, her head cocked in a listening attitude, turned to look at him. "You aren't," she said. "You've got your hands, your feet, and your head. You don't need any other weapons."

He sighed. He felt naked without his phase pistol, but a quick trip to the armory had revealed that it – like everything else – was useless. The dampening field had robbed them of all of their technology, and Malcolm didn't like this feeling of being unprepared. "I'd feel a lot better with a phase pistol, anyway."

She rolled her eyes and turned back around, muttering something under her breath. He couldn't quite make it out, but it sounded as though it was in Hawaiian, and he wouldn't have understood it even if he had heard what she said. One of these days he was going to learn to speak Hawaiian, just so she couldn't do this to him anymore – for he'd noticed that whenever she didn't want someone to know what she was saying, she switched to Hawaiian.

He was also beginning to realize how very little he knew about her. She continued to surprise him, and he couldn't help but wonder what other surprises she had in store for him.

He watched her as she walked – very carefully, one foot placed cautiously in front of the other, her ears perked to hear even the slightest sound. The question of who to take point hadn't really even needed to be discussed, as she was the most logical person. Her senses were much more finely tuned that Malcolm's, and with _Enterprise_ only running basic systems, it was difficult to navigate through the mostly darkened corridors.

"So when exactly did you encounter these Ferengi creatures?" he asked. The silence had become unbearable. He knew it was essential in order for her to hear whether or not anyone was approaching, but it was driving him crazy. It didn't often drive him crazy, but when he was with Kamea, his mind had to be occupied. Otherwise, he had inappropriate thoughts.

"About six years ago," said Kamea. She crouched low to the ground, examining something on the deck plating. She ran her fingers along the edge where the deck met the wall, then rubbed her fingers together. "I was working at a depository in the Helaspont Nebula. Ferengi used to come in all the time, trying to negotiate deals." She stood and gently sniffed the air.

"So they're businessmen?" They rounded a corner, into yet another dark corridor. But Kamea didn't seem at all fazed by the complete lack of light.

"You could call them that," she said. She stopped suddenly and glanced over her shoulder, then continued walking.

Malcolm turned also, curious if he could see what she thought she had heard, but of course he couldn't make out anything in the dim light, so he hurried after her. "You don't seem to think too highly of them."

She stopped again, leaning forward slightly to peer around another corner. "It's their treatment of women that I disagree with."

He moved to go around the corner, but she held out her hand to stop him. Unfortunately, in the darkness, he wasn't able to see it, and she had to grab him by the back of his uniform. She hauled him back and threw him against the wall, amazingly without making a sound, and kept him pinned against the wall with one hand. He knew that it was pointless to struggle, as she could very well rip out his rib cage if she wanted, so he stayed still, waiting for her to release him.

Suddenly the most ear-splitting shriek Malcolm had ever heard knocked everything else from his mind. It was so high that it was painful, and Malcolm collapsed to his knees, his hands over his ears, trying to block out the sound.

Kamea, whose ears were more sensitive than his own, was surprisingly alert. In the dim light, he could barely make out her form, but he saw her wave her arm. A dark shape flew by, and quite suddenly the shrieking stopped.

"What the bloody hell was that?" Malcolm asked, as Kamea held out a hand to help him to his feet.

"A Ferengi," Kamea said, peering around the corner once more. "That's what they do when threatened." She grabbed him by the wrist. "Come on. I think he's headed to the cargo bay."

_

* * *

This is stupid,_ Trip thought, and not for the first time, as he sat at his powered-down station on the bridge listening to Hoshi and T'Pol discuss these aliens that Kamea had called "Ferengi". _We're not doing anything. We're just sitting here, basically going, "Hey, weird-looking guys, please come and take all our stuff." We can't even communicate with Malcolm and his guys, so we have absolutely no idea what's going on._

He glanced around the bridge. Travis was still fiddling with helm control; Trip had been helping him for a while but soon got too frustrated to continue and left the young ensign to his own devices. The captain was pacing back and forth in front of the view port, and Trip was sure that he was going to wear a hole in the deck plating. T'Pol and Hoshi were at T'Pol's station, examining the star charts and the Vulcan database, scrambling to uncover as much information as possible on the area of space they had accidentally wandered into.

"We seem to be here," T'Pol said, pointing to something on her console. "Between these two stars. But this area of space is largely unexplored. However, according to the database, there is an M-class planet no less than ten light-years from this spot."

"The Ferengi home world?" Hoshi asked.

T'Pol nodded. "It is the logical conclusion." She pushed some buttons on her console, and though Trip couldn't see what was displayed, he saw the screen change colors, illuminating T'Pol's face in a different glow each time. "Odd…" she said. "The database acknowledges that a planet exists, but there is no further information."

"Kamea seemed surprised we hadn't heard of the Ferengi," Hoshi said.

Trip could feel T'Pol's frustration, even from several feet away. "Yes, well, I'm not quite sure we can trust Kamea's information."

She was wiggling into his brain again. He could feel a buzzing at the base, almost like an itch at the back of his neck. Unable to take anymore, he abruptly rose from his seat and wandered over to where the captain was continuing to wear a hole in the deck plating. He was also murmuring to himself, but Trip couldn't make out anything that he was saying.

"Captain," Trip said, his eyes darting back and forth, following Archer's movements, "maybe we should've gone with Malcolm and Kamea. I mean, we've dealt with these guys before, too."

Archer continued as though Trip hadn't even spoken. "There has to be some sort of diplomatic solution," he said. "And there has to be some way out of here."

Trip tried again. "Captain? Maybe we should go try and rendezvous with Malcolm. Form some kind of plan of attack."

"After all," Archer said, completely ignoring Trip again, "if nothing on our ship works, then their ships wouldn't work either."

Trip watched the captain pace for a few long moments before returning to his station. He didn't like feeling useless, but without any power, his chief task of monitoring the engines was pointless. He supposed he could go help Travis with the helm console, but he wasn't sure how much longer he could stand being on the bridge. For some reason, he was irritated, and everyone was driving him crazy.

He stood again. "I'm going to see if I can find Malcolm," he said, to no one in particular, as it didn't appear that anyone was listening. And when no one responded to his declaration, he stalked off the bridge and into the captain's ready room.

* * *

They were close. Kamea could smell him. She dragged Malcolm behind her as she wound her way through the dark corridors towards the cargo bay, determined to keep on the Ferengi's trail. He wouldn't be able to lose her. Perhaps an ordinary human, but not her. She had long ago learned how to take care of herself, how to hunt one out before she was hunted herself. It had been so with the Andorians, the Rigellians, and the Klingons. But at least with the Klingons, she had been able to negotiate a deal. Safe passage to the Gamma quadrant in exchange for boosting the range of their transporter was a pretty fair trade, in her opinion. 

She stopped so suddenly that Malcolm didn't have time to stop and ended up crashing into her, knocking both of them to the floor and making enough noise to alert every Ferengi within running distance to their presence.

Which is unfortunately exactly what happened, for when Kamea regained her bearings, she looked up and saw a Ferengi standing over her. His pointed teeth were bared in a malicious smile, and when he opened his mouth to let loose with a blood-curdling shriek, she knew she had to act fast.

"Tork?" she asked, screwing her face into what she hoped was an expression of recognition.

The Ferengi looked just as confused as she hoped she did. He shook his head. "No."

She shrugged. "Too bad." She stretched out her leg, nailing him square in the groin with her foot. When he doubled over in pain, she got to her feet. "Should have said yes."

She hauled the Ferengi to his feet and promptly shoved him against the wall. "What do you want?" she asked, placing the palm of one hand flat against his shoulder, right where it met the neck. "And don't lie to me. I don't like it when people lie to me."

The Ferengi's response to her question was to shriek, which Kamea should have realized was coming. Despite the throbbing pain in her head, she managed to summon enough strength to pinch the Ferengi's throat, rendering him unconscious.

"Well," she said, looking down at the unconscious Ferengi, "at least you didn't lie to me."

Malcolm clumsily got to his feet and shuffled over to her. "What did you just do?"

Kamea looked at him. "The Vulcan nerve pinch. Highly effective." She grabbed him by the wrist again. "Come on. We've got to get to the cargo bay."


	6. Lost and Found

**A/N: Again, many many many heartfelt apologies for the amount of time it took for me to update. Unfortunately, the only excuse I can offer is an extreme case of writers' block. I sat down to write numerous times, only to have absolutely no idea what to do with the story. I really should have planned this out better when I first got the idea. I usually do that. I'll do that next time, I swear. **

**And unfortunately times two, this will be the last new chapter for at least two weeks, because I've been summoned to jury duty and I'll be unable to update (no computer access). I will be writing while I'm sequestered in the hotel for two weeks, so once I get back I should be able to just type everything up and post it. Maybe I can even get it finished and start working on part 4 (which I actually had written until my hard drive crashed and I swear I'll stop bringing that up).**

**_kane_ - men**

**_lolo_ - idiot**

* * *

Trip crept cautiously through the corridors. He had no idea where he was going, had absolutely no clue where Kamea and Malcolm might be at that moment, and really couldn't care less. All he wanted was to be away from the bridge, to have time to sort out his thoughts without the engines exploding or someone interrupting or whatever happening. He hadn't really had all that much time to himself since Kamea's unexpected arrival more than a month ago, and though he in no way blamed Kamea for that, he wondered if perhaps she hadn't brought chaos with her when she boarded. Maybe she had it stowed in one of those secret compartments he knew she had built into the walls of her ship.

He inched closer to the wall, using it as a reference point. He trailed his fingers along it as he moved, trying to gather his bearings. He knew _Enterprise_ inside and out, but everything looked different in the dark, and the last thing he wanted was to be caught unaware by some of these Ferengi. He'd dealt with them before and wasn't all that anxious to do so again.

At least this time he was fully clothed.

Not that the whole experience hadn't been all bad. He'd learned that he and T'Pol made a pretty good team – being the only crew members conscious other than the captain, they'd had no choice but to work together. And though he'd been attracted to her from the get-go – she was a beautiful woman, after all, and he was only human – he'd refused to admit that to himself. But then she actually turned out to be a pretty decent person, and he started having trouble denying that something was there.

Now there was something else – something he was missing. And he knew she knew and wasn't telling him. And what was worse was that he knew Kamea knew and also was keeping her mouth shut. He expected to learn nothing from T'Pol – the whole "exploration in human sexuality" conversation still hurt like hell – but he had hoped that Kamea wouldn't be quite so mum. She maintained that it was none of her business, that if T'Pol wanted him to know, she would tell him, but he knew that wasn't true. T'Pol would never admit to anything. She never admitted to being jealous of Amanda Cole, though she so obviously had been. She'd never actually come out and said that she was attracted to him, though her demonstration spoke volumes. No, he had a feeling that if he wanted to know what was going on, he was going to have to figure it out on his own.

That, or worm it out of Kamea. Maybe if he worked on her for a while, he could get her to confess. He'd stick her in a shuttle pod with Malcolm for a while; a few hours of listening to him jabber on and she'd be willing to talk.

He rounded a corner and saw something. A dark, blurry shape, slightly more defined than the other dark, blurry shapes around him. He slowed his pace to an almost crawl, slowly moving closer until he was directly behind whatever it was.

And suddenly, the something turned, knocking him over with a sharp kick to the stomach.

"Commander!"

Trip groaned. He would recognize that voice anywhere. There weren't many Brits on board _Enterprise_, but he would have known the voice anyway. Malcolm fumbled in the darkness to help him up, and Trip took the offered hand. Malcolm hauled him to his feet, and the men were left facing each other, though unable to see each other.

"Terribly sorry, sir," Malcolm said, not sounding the least bit sorry. He'd probably wanted to do that for some time. Lord knows Trip had wanted to deck Malcolm once or twice. "I didn't realize it was you. Kamea and I were headed for the cargo bay and we got separated."

Trip raised his eyebrows. "You got separated?"

Malcolm sighed. "Well, actually it was more like I got separated. She was tracking a Ferengi, and I just can't see anything at the moment. She went around a corner and I lost her."

Trip couldn't help but laugh, which seemed to piss off Malcolm all the more. "You said she was headed for the cargo bay?"

"Yes," Malcolm said, his voice clipped and curt. "She seems to think that the Ferengi are headed there."

"Well," Trip said, rubbing his chin, "it makes sense. If they were going to rob the ship, that's probably where they'd go."

"But we don't have any cargo."

"I know that and you know that, but these Ferengi don't know that."

Something suddenly fell from the ceiling, causing both Malcolm and Trip to scream.

It was Kamea, suspended from a pipe by her legs, just like she did while working in engineering. She did not look amused. Her face was all red, though that could have been from all the blood rushing to her head. "_Kane_," she said, shaking her head. She dropped to the floor. "Will you two please shut up? They probably heard you on C-deck."

"We weren't being loud," Trip said. "And where have you been?"

"Ferengi have excellent hearing," Kamea said, pointedly ignoring Trip's last question. "So, yes, they probably heard you on C-deck. I think they're heading for the bridge."

Malcolm sputtered. "What, you don't know?"

Kamea rolled her eyes. "No."

"You're a mind-reader," Malcolm said. "Why can't you just read their minds?"

Kamea cocked an eyebrow. "You think it's that simple, do you?" Trip couldn't make out her face in the darkness, but he could tell from the inflection of her voice that she was pissed – for a Vulcan. "I've been honing my abilities for eight years, so don't even presume to believe you know more about my skills than I do."

"I know you can read minds," said Malcolm, before Trip could tell him to shut up. "You told the captain that you could."

"I know what I said," Kamea said, taking a step towards the two of them, "but there's things you don't know."

Malcolm took a step towards Kamea. Trip instinctively backed away. "Like what?"

"Ferengi are not like humans," said Kamea, which Trip thought was stating the obvious. "Their biological makeup is completely different, especially their brain chemistry. Something – some lobe or zone – in their brain prevents telepathic communication. So I can't read their minds." Kamea snorted. "_Lolo_."

"Well, you might have just said that," Malcolm said.

"Well, you didn't leave me much opportunity."

"Oh, so that hour of stony silence wasn't the right time?"

"I was tracking, and don't change the subject."

"I'm sure I wasn't changing the subject."

Trip sighed and shook his head. He half expected an army of Ferengi to appear out of nowhere and take the three of them by surprise, because Malcolm and Kamea were certainly making enough noise to attract their attention. He was just about to break the two of them up before blood was shed or one of them died when he felt a stabbing pain in the back of his head, like a migraine, only in the wrong place. "Ow! Goddamnit!"

Malcolm and Kamea immediately stopped arguing, and both turned as one to look at him. "Are you all right, Commander?" Malcolm asked.

Trip sucked in a breath through his teeth. "No. Feels like someone jabbed my head with a needle."

Kamea gasped, her hands flying to cover her mouth. She grabbed both Malcolm and Trip by a wrist and headed towards the nearest ladder. "Come on!" she said. "We have to get to the bridge."


	7. So Not Cool

**A/N: And I'm back! Sadly, didn't get it finished like I hoped I would, because I was also working on my "Without a Trace" fic (also was reading my way through like half a dozen books). But here, for your reading pleasure, is chapter 7. Chapter 8 - tentatively titled "Being a Guy" - will be posted tomorrow, to give me time to finish tweaking chapter 9, which I will hopefully have finished and posted by Monday at the latest.**

**Many thanks to the internet, assisting me in translating English into Hawaiian. Oh, and forgive me for Kamea's speech later in the chapter, but remember, she is fairly young by Vulcan standards, and she was raised on Earth. Also, I tend to write how I talk, forgetting that the characters aren't always like me. Like, totally.**

**"Enterprise" season 1 on DVD! Yay! I've already got mine, and if it weren't for my blasted sister and her stupid boyfriend watching their way through ourseason 1 of Buffy,I'd already have it finished. (Not that I don't like Buffy, but come on! Let me have the DVD player for once.)**

**No one tell me anything about the finale! My inferior cable system doesn't carry UPN, so my FOX affiliate replays Friday's episode on Sunday nights at 11, and therefore I won't get to see the last episode until May 22.**

**I heart you guys and your continued reviews! I hope these few chapters, while maybe not worth the wait (blame the government, guys, and not me), are entertaining, to say the least.**

* * *

Kamea had the keen eyesight, so she led the way. Even though it was nearly pitch black in the corridors – the emergency lights did little to light the ship – she managed to find the ladder to the bridge. She slid the last few inches across the floor, ending up directly underneath the ladder. She jumped and caught the bottom bar, but when she began to haul herself up, Malcolm grabbed her ankle.

"What exactly do you hope to accomplish?" he asked, completely confused. And judging from the look on Trip's face, Malcolm wasn't the only one who had no idea what was going on.

Kamea kicked at him, but he held tight. "Look, I can't explain it, but something is happening on the bridge, and we need to get there."

"What makes you think something's happening on the bridge?" Trip asked. He sounded worried, but that was understandable. T'Pol was on the bridge, and though both of them outright denied it, everyone on _Enterprise_ knew that there was something going on between them – despite T'Pol's marriage.

"I told you I couldn't explain it," said Kamea. "Let's just say I can sense danger. I think the Ferengi aren't trying to loot the ship. I think they're trying to steal the ship. And to do that, they need to take control of the bridge."

She started to climb again, and this time, Malcolm – his wrist still clamped firmly around her ankle – went with her. He'd forgotten how much stronger she was. He looked pleadingly at Trip, and the commander wrapped his arms around Malcolm's legs, providing an anchor.

"You're not going first," Malcolm said, tugging on Kamea's foot, trying to pull her off the ladder. He couldn't stand the fact that Kamea was doing everything that he should have been doing, as head of security, but if he let Kamea go first and something happened to her, he would never forgive himself. "I should go first."

"Why?" she asked, trying to wrench her foot free of his grasp. "I'm perfectly capable of doing this."

Malcolm gave one last pull, and Kamea's grip on the ladder rung finally slackened. She fell on top of him. They lay like that, with her on top of him, for what seemed like an eternity before Malcolm was rescued from certain humiliation by Trip. He had grabbed Kamea under each arm and hauled to her feet. Malcolm silently thanked Trip's impeccable timing and propped himself up on his elbows.

"Come on, you two," Trip said, setting Kamea down beside him. "Stop it. We've got a serious problem and you two are bickering like an old married couple." Malcolm chose not to comment, but Trip saying that was the pot calling the kettle black. Trip looked at Malcolm. "You got a plan?"

Malcolm nodded and got to his feet. In truth, he really didn't have much of a plan because he had no idea what he was facing. He'd never dealt with the Ferengi before, but he was in charge of _Enterprise's_ security and he'd be damned before he'd let two engineers take control. "We get on the bridge."

Trip and Kamea exchanged a look, which Malcolm interpreted immediately as a "what an idiot" look, and then both of them turned their gazes on him. "That's your plan?" Trip asked. "That's not a plan. That's a statement."

Kamea snorted. "How, oh mighty armory officer, do you propose we get on the bridge? There are three of us against who knows how many Ferengi, we have no idea what condition the bridge officers are in, and you don't have any weapons."

Malcolm raised his eyebrows. "You said it yourself – we don't need any weapons. Just our hands, our feet, and our heads." He couldn't help but get excited – this was the kind of stuff he lived for. There'd been an unsatisfying lack of combat since their re-launch, and his late-night spars with Kamea weren't enough to get the itch out of his system.

She shrugged. "That's all well and good for you and me, but I've seen the commander fight, and it's not pretty."

"Hey," Trip said, sounding genuinely hurt, "what have I ever done to you?" Kamea opened her mouth to respond, but Trip spoke before she could get the chance. "On second though, don't answer that."

"I'll climb up and see what's going on," Kamea said, reaching for the bar once more. "Once I've determined the status of the bridge crew, I'll come back down and we can start banging out a plan."

Malcolm grabbed her shoulder. "As head of security, I really think – "

Kamea looked at him incredulously. "Are you pulling rank on me?"

Malcolm looked to Trip for assistance, but Trip held up his hands and shook his head. The meaning was clear – he wasn't about to get in the middle of their argument. Malcolm turned back to Kamea. "It is my job to protect this ship's crew."

"I'm not crew," said Kamea. Her eyes narrowed to angry slits. "You've never dealt with the Ferengi before. I have. You can't see in this light. I can." She shook her head and made a noise in the back of her throat. "This back-and-forth is pointless. I'm going."

She leapt up, caught the bar, and had disappeared into the chute before Malcolm could stop her. Malcolm went to the bottom of the ladder and stared up the tube after her, but he couldn't see a thing. He knew, of course, that sending Kamea was the logical decision, but he didn't want to admit it. He didn't want to admit that he was in a situation for which he was completely unprepared, and he hadn't wanted to send Kamea alone. She was excellent in a one-on-one spar with him, but he had no idea how she would fare against a number of assailants. And if the bridge crew had been incapacitated in any way – which they most likely had – then she would be facing an indeterminate number of enemies. The thought made him physically ill.

He turned his head at an angle, trying to listen. He could faintly hear the sounds of Kamea shuffling her way up the ladder, but after a few minutes, the sounds disappeared. He couldn't be certain whether that was because she was out of earshot or because she had stopped, and though he wanted to call out to her, he didn't. It could alert the Ferengi to what they were doing.

"Do you hear that?" Trip asked, after a moment or two.

Malcolm stretched on his toes, trying to get closer to the bottom of the shaft. At first, he didn't hear anything. But then he heard a clinking, as though something metal was bouncing off the rungs of the ladder.

Then Kamea's voice echoed down the chute. "_Nānā pono_!"

Malcolm had absolutely no idea what the hell that meant. He glanced at Trip, who shrugged. But a second later, they both found out, as Kamea fell from the ceiling, once again landing on top of Malcolm. This time there was no awkwardness as they waited for the other to move – Kamea scrambled to her feet almost immediately, pulling Malcolm up after her. She pushed Malcolm and Trip out of the way seconds before something small and black fell from the chute.

Kamea had just enough time to turn around and throw up her hands when the small, black whatever exploded. Malcolm instinctively reached to pull Kamea away from the blast, but Trip held him back. And then Malcolm saw why.

Somehow, Kamea had put up a force field. Instead of emanating throughout the corridor, the blast was contained within a small area, in what seemed like an invisible orb. Malcolm had never seen a nuclear explosion up close, but he imagined that the effects were similar. It was as though a huge ball of smoke was just floating in midair directly in front of Kamea.

When the last of the smoke had dissipated, Kamea whirled to face them. "I totally almost got blown up!" she said. "That is so not cool!"

Malcolm walked over to the blast site and crouched down to examine the fragments of the object. He knew better than to touch them – they were probably still hot from the blast – but he used his foot to sweep what he could find into a pile.

"How the hell did they get weapons that work?" Trip asked. "Our weapons don't work."

"It looks like a grenade," Malcolm said. He pulled the cuff of his sleeve over his hand and shifted through the rubble.

"Grenade?" Kamea asked, squatting nearby. "That's old school."

"How did they get a grenade?" asked Trip.

Kamea shrugged. She picked up one of the pieces. "Probably traded for it. That's what they do." She dropped her head back, so that she was staring up the chute. "And it's a good bet that anyone on the bridge has been subdued." She looked at Malcolm. "I couldn't get a clear reading, but there's at least half a dozen of them up there."

"They took an awful chance, didn't they?" Trip asked. "Trying to take over a ship with a crew complement of eighty with half a dozen people?"

Malcolm pursed his lips in thought. "Well, without our weapons, in the dark, it would be remarkably easy to subdue us. That's probably what they were counting on." He stood up. "We should gather reinforcements. This is going to be more difficult than I thought." He glanced at Kamea. "What did you say to me?"

She furrowed her brow. "What?"

"When you fell. What did you say?"

She cocked an eyebrow. "I said 'look out'."

He shook his head. "I've really got to learn Hawaiian."


	8. Being a Guy

T'Pol was quickly learning how to identify the different emotions she was now experiencing. At first, it had been difficult, but she was becoming quite adept at realizing what she was feeling. And at the moment, she was pissed off.

First of all, Commander Tucker had seemingly disappeared. No one had any idea where he had gone, nor did anyone know when he had left. So it was entirely possible that something had happened to him. She knew that this was not the case, however, by searching him out through their bond. He had located Kamea and Malcolm and was currently several decks below them. But that didn't stop her from being angry with him for vanishing like that, even when she sensed that he was worried about her. Very worried.

The reason behind his illogical fears became evident when several Ferengi appeared on the bridge, having apparently discovered the hidden hatches and ladders and using them to maneuver about the ship. There were only seven of them, but there were far less crewmembers on the bridge, and it had not taken very long to subdue the bridge crew.

T'Pol had attempted to fight back, but the Ferengi attacked with some kind of ultrasonic frequency that she was especially susceptible to, with her overly sensitive hearing. She was incapacitated in a matter of seconds, trying unsuccessfully to block out the harmful noise. The others followed soon after, though Travis made a valiant attempt to prevent them from attacking Hoshi.

Now, T'Pol, Captain Archer, Hoshi, and Travis had been physically restrained and herded into the middle of the bridge, surrounded by four ill-tempered Ferengi who jabbered back and forth in some odd language. With all the noise they were making, it was a wonder that they heard anything. But they somehow heard someone trying to make their way up the ladder and into the captain's ready room, because in seconds the remaining Ferengi had crowed around the hatch, tittering excitedly.

T'Pol's eyesight was far more acute in dim light than in the brightness that humans considered acceptable light, and when leaned forward slightly, she immediately caught sight of Hoshi, who sat on the other side of Archer. "What are they saying?" she asked.

Hoshi shook her head. "I'd need the UT. I can't quite grasp the syntax."

Several moments later, the sound of a muffled explosion made it to T'Pol's sensitive ears. She and Hoshi exchanged a look – Hoshi had "supersonic" hearing, according to the captain, and had obviously heard what T'Pol had heard. T'Pol became concerned and immediately sought out Trip's presence. It lapped at the edge of her conscience, and she was somewhat relieved to learn that he was, for the moment, unharmed.

Then she grew angry that he was causing her to worry so much.

"It didn't make enough noise," one of the Ferengi said to the others, after the muted explosion had died down. "It should have made more noise."

"Agreed," another one said. He pointed at one of the Ferengi that had been assigned to guard the bridge crew. "You, go find out what's going on."

When the Ferengi had disappeared down the ladder, T'Pol had time to meditate on the situation. Obviously, Trip had sensed her danger through their bond. He may not have realized what exactly was going on, but if he voiced anything about the situation, Kamea would have been able to correctly interpret it. They had apparently attempted to get to the bridge, only to have some sort of explosive devise dropped on them. And judging from the reaction the Ferengi gave, Kamea had successfully managed to contain the explosion. And now someone was being sent to discover them.

T'Pol tried to tell Trip, through their bond, that he was in danger. But he wouldn't know what she was trying to tell him – he would only sense her apprehension and grow even more worried. It was one thing trying to control her own emotions, but adding Trip's made it nearly impossible to do so.

She only hoped that Kamea, at least, had enough sense to stay away from the bridge.

* * *

They went directly to engineering, as it held the strongest chance of finding people. Most of the crew hadn't moved since the power outage, and Kamea could tell that there was still a great concentration of people in the engine room. They were going to need numbers if they wanted to mount any kind of counterassault against the Ferengi. Kamea could only sense that the bridge officers were alive but couldn't get any kind of reading as to their status. Trip, on the other hand, with his bizarre connection to T'Pol – which Kamea wasn't even attempting to understand – was worried. Only he didn't know why. 

Kamea stopped suddenly, letting Malcolm and Trip go on ahead of her. She turned her ears backwards, positive that she'd heard something. But the longer she stood there, the more she became convinced that paranoia was a Vulcan trait, and she'd obviously inherited it.

But when she started moving again, she heard it. She stopped again, now totally convinced that someone was following the three of them.

Malcolm appeared beside her so suddenly that she started and almost fell over. When she stumbled slightly, he held out his arms to steady her, and she immediately wished he'd just let her fall, because every time he touched her, it was growing harder and harder to control her emotions.

"Kamea?" Malcolm asked, his voice barely a whisper in her ear, and damn, was that sexy. "Did you hear something?"

She took a deep breath, struggling to clamp down on her baser instincts, and nodded. "Yeah." She used her head to gesture at the corridor behind her. "There's someone following us. I thought I was just being paranoid, but now I can tell. Someone is definitely there."

"I'll go and have a look," Malcolm said. He brushed past her before she had the chance to stop him. She tried throwing up a force field, but Malcolm just walked around it, probably assuming he'd just run into something.

"_Kane_," Kamea said, turning around. She had to find Trip and then go after Malcolm, because that man had some kind of hero complex.

Was it wrong that she found that extremely attractive?

She found Trip easily – he hadn't gone that much farther. "Malcolm's being a guy," she said by way of explanation. "I'm going to make sure that he doesn't do anything stupid."

Trip grabbed her wrist when she turned to go. "Malcolm's a big boy," he said. "He's perfectly capable of taking care of himself."

Kamea glanced in the general direction of Trip's voice. "You go down to engineering and round up as many as you can, then head to the bridge and see what you can do. I'm going after Malcolm."

She made to go again, but Trip only tightened his grip on her wrist. She looked at him. "Why?" he asked.

She blinked in surprise. "_'Ohana_," she said, knowing full well that Trip had no idea what she'd just said. She wrenched her arm free of Trip's grasp and took off down the corridor after Malcolm, muttering to herself the entire way, which under the circumstances probably wasn't the brightest idea she'd ever had. The Ferengi were certain to hear her and attack.

And that was exactly what she was counting on.

She slowed her pace when she reached a turn, trying to sense Malcolm, but she couldn't get a clear reading. Something was interfering with her telepathy, which could only mean that the Ferengi were nearby. And when they jumped out of the shadows, she didn't even try to fight back.

* * *

**A/N: Again, I hope to have chapter 9 up by Monday. I'm still working on it -- I've reached asort of impasse, but I think I've got it figured out.**

**_kane_ - men**

**_'ohana_ - family**

**Mad props to the many online Hawaiian dictionaries.**


	9. Nobody Gets Left Behind

**A/N: Ah, see, chapter 9, up by Monday, just like I said. It's going to take me a while to get chapter 10 up, but I hope to have it posted by the end of the week.**

**Cried my eyes out last night when I saw "Terra Prime". Well, let me tell you, in this universe, T/T have suffered enough, and I'm not going to let the universe punish them any more. And from what I've heard about the so-called finale, I can tell that I'm not going to like it. I'll still watch it (it IS the last episode - curse TPTB!), I just won't like it.**

* * *

Malcolm felt like the galaxy's biggest prat. He had rushed off to "defend" Kamea without any knowledge whatsoever of his opponents, except that they attacked with some kind of shriek, which had Malcolm on his knees in pain in a matter of moments. The Ferengi accosted him, tied him up, and hauled him up to the bridge, where he was placed with the rest of the crew, who thankfully hadn't been harmed. However, they didn't look too thrilled on seeing their tactical officer tied up next to them.

"Nice rescue, Malcolm," Captain Archer said, shaking his head. "I knew I recruited you as head of security for a reason."

"All due respect, sir," Malcolm said, his pride sufficiently wounded, "they ambushed me."

"And the others?" T'Pol asked, which Malcolm took as code for, _What about Commander Tucker?_ It was fairly obvious that's what she wanted to ask, but was afraid to.

"Commander Tucker and Kamea are attempting to mount a counterassault," he said. "They're rounding up crewmembers as we speak."

Travis's face fell. "I wouldn't be too sure of that."

Malcolm furrowed his brow in confusion, and Travis used his head to gesture at the captain's ready room. When Malcolm saw a Ferengi dragging a bound Kamea behind him, his heart momentarily stopped beating…until he saw that she appeared uninjured and seemed to be willingly accompanying her captor. It made absolutely no sense, because Kamea should have had no problem freeing herself. And the Ferengi obviously didn't see her as any kind of a threat, since she was still conscious. Her wrists were tied behind her back, but she was lethal even then.

The Ferengi barely seemed able to touch her – Malcolm remembered Kamea saying something about that earlier, but in all honesty he hadn't really been paying attention – but he led her to the others and pushed her roughly down. She fell onto her side, and with his hands bound, Malcolm was unable to help her up. But she managed to right herself.

"What are you doing here?" Malcolm asked.

She turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised. How one look could be both irritating and endearing was beyond Malcolm's comprehension, but she managed to do it. "_'Ohana_," she said. "Where I come from, it means that nobody gets left behind."

He leaned in as close as possible without losing his balance and lowered his voice, recalling that Ferengi had excellent hearing. "I told you I would take care of it."

Kamea rolled her eyes. "And look how well that turned out."

He grunted, not ready to admit that she had a point. He'd hardly been the gallant protector when they'd subdued him in mere seconds, and he hadn't even managed to prevent her from getting captured. That shriek of theirs was a very powerful weapon. How Kamea had managed to keep hold of her senses with that shriek echoing in her ears was a mystery, especially since her hearing was more sensitive than Malcolm's – even T'Pol had admitted having difficulty, and for T'Pol to admit that was an achievement in itself. "You got captured, too," he said, at the moment not caring that he sounded like a child.

"Yes," she said, dragging out the word longer than necessary, "but I wanted to get captured." She glanced around. Malcolm followed her gaze and saw that she was watching their Ferengi guards, who were no longer guarding them. They were arguing over some piece of equipment that they'd ripped out of the wall. Kamea winced at the sight, but turned her attention to her restraints.

"Come again?" Malcolm asked, at a complete loss.

Kamea leaned forward slightly, looking around Malcolm at T'Pol, on his left. "Do you want to break out now, or wait for the revolution?"

T'Pol narrowed her eyes, but only slightly. "I assume you have a plan." It wasn't a question – it was practically an order.

The others looked anxiously to Kamea, who grinned. "Divide and conquer," she said. "I'll create a diversion while you get the others out of here."

Malcolm cleared his throat. "I really don't think that's such a good idea."

Kamea sighed in exasperation. "Malcolm, I can do this. Let me do this."

She didn't wait for him to respond and, using the captain's chair for leverage, pushed herself onto her feet. "Do you have any idea what you're even going to do?" Malcolm asked.

She shook her head gleefully and jumped, swinging her arms down so that now her hands were tied in front of her and not behind. "No."

One of the Ferengi noticed that she was now standing and walked over to her. When he was close enough, she spat in his face. He charged her, wrapping his arms around her stomach and rushing towards the wall of the bridge. She pulled her legs up, waited for her feet to make contact, and then pushed off, sending both her and the Ferengi stumbling backwards into the other Ferengi, who had gathered to watch the spectacle.

T'Pol, meanwhile, effortlessly freed herself from her bonds and set about freeing the others. When everyone had been untied, they raced for the ladder in the captain's ready room.

They didn't make it that far. One of the Ferengi saw them endeavoring to escape and let loose with one of their high-frequency shrieks. Malcolm squeezed his eyes shut against the searing pain in his head, clamping his hands over his ears in a futile attempt to block out the sound.

"Shut up!" said Kamea. She jumped on the shrieking Ferengi's back, throwing her still-tied arms around his neck. "I am so sick of you guys doing that!" She placed her hand at the juncture between his shoulder and his neck, and he collapsed beneath her.

Two more Ferengi attacked Kamea from behind, but before they had even laid a hand on her, they went flying across the bridge and into the wall. But they got up quickly and advanced once more. Soon she was surrounded by the remaining six of them, who were all regarding her with suspicion.

* * *

Kamea glanced around her, realizing for the first time that she was surrounded and outnumbered. She didn't so much like her odds. Granted, as far as odds went, six against one wasn't as bad as it could have been – she'd had worse, but those times hadn't turned out to her advantage. She tried to count all of the times that she'd been in this situation and found that she couldn't count that high – and she was an engineer. 

And her hands were still tied together.

She stared at the bonds securing her wrists and yanked them apart unceremoniously. She rubbed her wrists to restore circulation, making sure to keep her eyes on the Ferengi. She could still get out of this if she tried. All she had to do was get to the ladder in the ready room. She could do that.

One of the Ferengi advanced, and she kicked him in the stomach. When he stumbled backwards another one lunged at her from behind, but she sensed him coming and nailed him in the face with an over-the-shoulder right hook. Two of them came at her at the same time, but she ducked down and let them collide with each other. She tried to crawl across the floor, to where the others were scrambling down the ladder, but one of the Ferengi grabbed her ankles.

She barely had time to squeak in surprise before the Ferengi had hauled her back into the circle, and when she rolled over to get some perspective, she saw that they had all surrounded her again. Her brain was fuzzy – those damn scumbags were interfering with her telekinesis now as well as her telepathy – so she couldn't lash out with her mind, which was the only thing that had saved her before, in situations like this. She kicked wildly, nailing one of them, at least, in the groin area, but there were too many of them to fight, and eventually they had her arms pinned down to the sides.

A Ferengi gripped her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet, successfully keeping her arms at her sides so that she couldn't fight back. He held her where she was, suspended in midair, before the others. They were poking her and prodding her and if her telekinesis hadn't been all screwed up, they would've found themselves missing vital parts of their anatomies.

"Vulcan," one of them said. It came out as a hiss of distaste. How any of them knew what a Vulcan looked like was beyond her, since to the best of her knowledge the Vulcans had never encountered the Ferengi before. "Ferengi" wasn't an entry in the Vulcan database. He pinched the tips of her pointed ears, as if to prove his point, and she sucked in a sharp breath. Leave it to a Ferengi to be so callous – it wasn't just the Vulcan hearing that was so sensitive. The ears were the most sensitive spots on a Vulcan body, which was why they were erogenous zones. But she wasn't about to tell the Ferengi that.

"Don't let the ears fool you," Kamea said through clenched teeth. "Keep it up, _kēkake_, and you'll see just how un-Vulcan I really am."

He poked at her again. "You would do well to hold your tongue."

She narrowed her eyes, knowing full well the Ferengi stance on the equality of the sexes. She'd encountered it enough times working at that damn depository – Ferengi didn't exactly hold women in high regard. She'd often been shunted aside in favor of the men in engineering, even though she was more qualified than all of them. Not that she particularly cared. If the Ferengi wanted to fly around space in an inferior ship, that was their problem. She got enough business from the Orions anyway.

"What do you want with _Enterprise_?" she asked, blatantly ignoring the suggestion that she shut up. Since when was she going to take orders from a Ferengi?

They laughed, but Kamea saw nothing funny about the situation. Finally, the one holding Kamea leaned close and said into her ear, "We have some clients who would pay a bundle for a warp-5 vessel."

She was about to ask what kind of clients would deal with the scum of the universe when that same damn Ferengi started poking her again. So she did the only thing she could think to do. She spit in his face.

The Ferengi hissed and drew away, all except the one holding Kamea, who remained exactly where he was. She'd had enough of this. Summoning all of the strength she possessed, she broke free of the Ferengi's hold and threw her elbows into his abdomen as hard as she could. When the others came at her, she did a combination of acrobatic moves that she generally only saved for spars with Malcolm and landed on the other side of them – on the safe side. Without sparing a backwards glance to see if they were following her, she raced into the ready room, lowered herself into the chute, and loosely grabbed both sides of the ladder, allowing her to slide easily down. She glanced up and saw that they were clambering into the hatch as well, obviously intent on following her down.

She landed somewhere on D-deck and took off down the corridor. She hadn't gone far when she crashed into something. The jolt just behind her navel and the tingling in her skin told her that she had run into Malcolm.

Malcolm started to speak. "Kamea, what the – " But he didn't get very far into his sentence before Kamea had grabbed him by the wrist and was pulling him down the corridor.

"Get out of the way," she said. "Get out of the way. Get out of the way. Get out of the way."

They didn't stop running until they were well away from the emergency ladder and buried deep within the labyrinthine engine room. Kamea collapsed to her knees, short of breath, and listened to Malcolm's ragged breathing somewhere off to her right. She glanced up, catching the glint in his eyes as he sought her out in the darkness. "Why did you come back for me?" she asked.

He smiled. "Nobody gets left behind."

She couldn't help but smile, and if he could have seen her face, he would have seen just how shyly she was smiling, and that she was blushing all the way to the tips of her pointed ears. She glanced around engineering, quickly realizing that the two of them were the only ones there. "Where is everyone?"

"The launch bay," Malcolm said. "The captain thought it was best, considering the circumstances, that they convene in a place with adequate amounts of space to plan the counterassault."

Kamea raised her eyebrows. "Makes sense, I suppose. You reckon we should join them?"

"'Reckon'?" Malcolm said, and she could hear the amusement in his voice, even if she couldn't see it on his face. "I think you've been spending far too much time in the company of Commander Tucker."

She rolled her eyes but started towards the launch bay. "T'Pol's under that impression as well. Perhaps the two of you should form a club."

* * *

It took T'Pol ages to convince Trip that she was okay. He had felt something – he knew he had, he just had no idea what it was he had felt – and he was sure that whatever it was, it had something to do with her. He didn't even care that everyone was staring at the two of them as he gave her a precursory inspection. She appeared unharmed, but only after he had dragged her over to Phlox was he completely satisfied that she was really okay. 

T'Pol, for her part, seemed annoyed at his attention, but a pleasant tingle at the base of his brain told him otherwise. He could tell, for some reason, that she really enjoyed his concern for her well-being.

Once Phlox had examined all the members of the bridge crew – minus Malcolm and Kamea, who were still missing – the captain addressed all the assembled crewmembers. There weren't many, unfortunately. Though Kamea had been correct in saying that engineering held the greatest concentration of people, it was still less than a fourth of the total crew.

And when the captain unveiled his so-called brilliant plan – he intended to barter with the Ferengi, offering himself in exchange for the rest of _Enterprise's_ crew – Trip got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that something really, really bad was going to happen. This wasn't the first time that Trip didn't agree with Captain Archer's decision. Trip couldn't remember the last time Archer had been his friend and captain as opposed to only his captain, or the last time he had made a sane, rational decision. The captain was always placing himself in harm's way, and while originally Trip had believed he did so to reassure his crew, he now thought that Archer did so because he couldn't stand anyone else doing what he thought he should do. He thought he was freaking Superman, or something.

And this was no exception.

His whole idea was ludicrous. It made absolutely no sense. Attempting to barter with the Ferengi? Trip didn't need to know anything about the Ferengi to know that that plan wasn't going to work. Why did the captain continue to think that he had to sacrifice himself for _Enterprise_? Granted, Trip didn't exactly have kind of backup plan, but there had to be another way.

"There is no other way, Trip," Archer said, when Trip confronted him and told him that his plan was suicide. "This is the way it has to be."

Trip opened his mouth to launch yet another valid protest – but since when did the captain listen to him? – but was interrupted by T'Pol. "Captain," she said, lightly laying her hand on Trip's arm and successfully preventing him from doing something he probably would've regretted, "with all due respect, that hardly seems logical."

Trip bit back a smile at T'Pol's infusion of logic. One of these days he was going to make a bet with her that she couldn't go an entire day without saying the word "logical". But this time he had to agree with her – not only was the captain's idea illogical, it was stupid and suicidal. There was no method to his madness – just madness. Trip knew that Archer had had some dumb ideas before – the alien hatchery debacle came to mind – but this one really took the cake.

Archer didn't seem to share Trip's amusement. In fact, he looked downright pissed off, much the same as he used to back in the early days of the mission. "Well, it may not be logical," Archer said, "but it's the only option."

He turned and headed for the corridor. Trip and T'Pol exchanged a look, having a conversation with their eyes, which Trip understood even though he didn't really understand, before they hurried after him. He was halfway across the launch bay before they caught up to him, and he was almost to the door when Kamea and Malcolm burst through it. They were both out of breath and looked as though they'd been running for a ways.

"Where's the fire?" Trip asked, as Malcolm and Kamea both collapsed against the railing for support.

Kamea rolled her eyes, but said nothing. She was still trying to catch her breath. She leaned forward, bracing her hands on her thighs, and took deep, even breaths. Malcolm also said nothing, resting against the wall and clutching a stitch in his side.

"What happened?" T'Pol asked.

"We had an unfortunate run-in with our friends," Malcolm said. He winced and sucked in a sharp breath, dropping heavily to the floor. "I don't think I've ever run that fast in my life."

Kamea nodded, her eyes closed. "Those little buggers run fast." She straightened slowly, exhaling through pursed lips. "It was all we could do to get away with them. All of them together like that disrupts my brainwaves, and I'm good, but I can't take on seven at once." She glanced at T'Pol. "Please tell me you have a plan."

Archer straightened so quickly that Trip swore he could almost hear his spine snap into place. "I'm going to offer myself in exchange for everyone else."

Kamea and Malcolm exchanged a look, much like the one Trip and T'Pol had shared. Kamea cocked an eyebrow, looking confused, and Malcolm looked irritated. Then again, Malcolm always looked irritated. Trip had always assumed it was the British in him.

"That's your plan?" Kamea said. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

* * *

**A/N: Sorry! Forgot I had a Hawaiian word in there.**

**_kēkake -- _jackass (literally, "donkey", but for the purposes of this story, it means "jackass")**


	10. KnowItAlls

Archer couldn't believe his ears. As captain of the _Enterprise_, he was unaccustomed to having his orders questioned in such a manner. His crew may not have always agreed with his decisions, but at least they respected them – and followed them. He was the captain, after all. "I beg your pardon?"

Trip, T'Pol, and Malcolm all looked away, obviously recognizing the tone in his voice. Kamea, however, was new to the ship and wasn't yet used to his different vocal inflections. It would take her some time to realize the times – such as now – when he meant business. She crossed her arms and said, "I said, 'That's the dumbest – '"

He cut her off with a wave of his hand, not at all pleased with her attitude. She was a guest onboard. Did she really think she had the authority to speak to him in that way? "Do you have another idea?" he asked. _Oh, please,_ he thought._ Let the might Kamea bail us out of this jam. After all, she knows everything._

Kamea narrowed her eyes, and for a brief moment he wondered if she knew what he was thinking, then she shook her head. "No. But anything we come up with has to better than that. I mean, your plan doesn't even make sense."

"That's what I said," said Trip, obviously glad that Kamea was on his side. When was she not on his side? Ever since Kamea had arrived on _Enterprise_, she and his chief engineer had been practically attached at the hip. If he weren't positive that Trip was in love with T'Pol, he would have suspected a romantic relationship between the two of them.

Archer silenced Trip with a look, and his friend gave him a sheepish shrug in return. Archer then leveled a glare at Kamea. "It's obvious that this isn't going to be resolved by diplomatic means." Here he cast a glance at T'Pol, who merely cocked an eyebrow. "I think it's best if I end this now." He grabbed onto the railings on either side of the staircase and prepared to jump onto the landing, but Kamea's voice stopped him.

"It won't do any good." He turned to face her, just above him on the landing. She raised a delicate eyebrow in response to his questioning stare. "They don't care about any of us – hard as that may be to believe." She leaned against the railing and nodded at the ceiling, as though gesturing to the invisible Ferengi ship. "They want _Enterprise_."

"Over my dead body," Trip said emphatically. T'Pol laid her hand on his arm again, and he calmed down instantly. Archer furrowed his brow in confusion. Just what in the hell was going on with those two lately?

Kamea winked at Trip. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that." She returned her attention to Archer. "But the Ferengi do intend to sell _Enterprise._ There are plenty of unsavory characters in this galaxy who would give their right arms at the prospect of coming into possession of a warp-5 vessel."

"What about the crew?" T'Pol asked, and Archer couldn't help but notice that her hand was still on Trip's arm. In fact, instead of simply resting her hand on his shoulder, she was gripping his forearm tightly. "What do they intend to do with us?"

Kamea glanced at Malcolm and cocked her head to the side. Malcolm sighed and stepped forward to the railing, standing beside Kamea. "As far as we can tell, nothing," he said. "They're only interested in the ship."

Kamea pursed her lips and stepped onto the bottom railing, gripping the top bar in order to keep herself upright. "Depending on who their buyer is, they could plan on selling us as well. I mean, if their buyer is, say, Orion, we could just be the icing on the cake."

"Orion?" Archer asked, confused. He bit the inside of his cheek, wondering if they had ever come across that species before. A glance at Trip and Malcolm revealed that they, too, had no idea what Kamea was talking about. So he turned to his science officer, with her extensive knowledge of the Vulcan database, for information.

T'Pol nodded that she understood where Kamea was going and folded her arms across her chest, mercifully removing her hand from Trip. "Slave traders," she said. "Low warp capabilities."

Kamea smiled, but it was an odd smile – kind of rueful, and unlike anything Archer had ever seen on a Vulcan. Not that that was saying much. "Just a notch above the Ferengi in terms of respectability, though the Ferengi usually don't deal in people." She grimaced, bending forward over the railing, looking very much like a five-year-old who was unable to sit still. "I'm guessing they saw this as an opportunity. Get the ship as the main course, and the crew is dessert."

Archer rolled his eyes. He didn't like being in this kind of situation, where they had no idea what their next move was going to be. And unfortunately, since taking command of _Enterprise_ a little more than three years ago, they had been in this situation more times than not. "This is all well and good, but it doesn't get us anywhere."

Kamea ignored Archer and leaned all the way forward, balancing on her stomach on the top bar, until her face was only inches from Trip's. "Commander," she said, for once not using his nickname, as Archer knew she was apt to do, "what do we know about this dampening field?"

Trip scrubbed a hand over his face and gave a half-hearted shrug. "It has to have a base somewhere. Trouble is, there aren't any planets nearby where it could be located. Not that we could do anything about it if we found its base anyway."

"Well, the Ferengi got here somehow," said Kamea. "So their ship obviously wasn't affected."

"But that doesn't make sense," Malcolm said. He grabbed the back of Kamea's shirt and pulled on it until she was upright. "Their ship should have been affected in the same way that _Enterprise_ was."

Trip snapped his fingers suddenly. "Unless their ship is the base."

Kamea brightened immediately. "Of course! A projected dampening field. Most species are still in the developmental phase, but the Ferengi are more than capable of acquiring a functioning transmitter."

Malcolm was nodding, picking up the trail. "Yes. They probably lurk about a practically empty region of space, waiting for approaching ships to wander through. And when they find one that looks promising, they lure it into the field, wait for it to lose power, board it, and hijack it. Then they must contact their ship and – "

"How?" T'Pol asked. "Nothing on _Enterprise_ can function within the confines of the dampening field, which means that they would not be able to communicate with their ship."

"There's got to be something we're missing," said Trip. He tugged on his ear. "Are there any other ways to get in touch with their ship besides communicators?"

Kamea shrugged. "Did you ever see _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_? They communicated with an alien vessel with musical tones. And in _Independence Day_, they used a series of lights attached to a helicopter – "

"You've watched too many science fiction movies," said Malcolm, with a hint of amusement in his voice.

" – but everything I can think of involves some sort of electricity, which of course we don't have," Kamea said, as though Malcolm hadn't even spoken. "So how exactly were they planning on getting back to their ship?"

Everyone was silent for a moment, pondering the answer to that question. After a few minutes, Trip raised his eyebrows and said, "The same way they got on?"

Archer stared at his chief engineer, thinking. How had the Ferengi gotten on board? They had to have gotten on somehow. Perhaps they had beamed aboard and were simply given a deadline, by which they had to hijack the ship and after which the dampening field would be shut down. But they had no way of knowing that for certain. Archer glanced around at the others, but no one seemed to know any more than he did.

It was Kamea who finally spoke up, not surprisingly. After all, she knew everything. "Do the launch bay doors have a manual release on the outside?"

As one, they all turned to look at the launch bay doors.

Trip cleared his throat. "You think that's how they got in?"

Kamea lifted one shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug and crouched down, resting her chin on the bottom bar. "Are there any other ways onto the ship? Emergency hatches, docking ports, that sort of thing?"

Trip turned to T'Pol. "Would the EV suits work in a dampening field?"

T'Pol cocked her head to the side, as though considering the question. "If Kamea's speculation that the dampening field is only encompassing _Enterprise_ is to be believed, then once outside of the ship, there shouldn't be any problems." She paused, raising an eyebrow. "Are you suggesting one of us go outside to check?"

Archer clambered up the steps before Trip could respond. "I'll go."

"Captain," Malcolm said, brushing past Kamea and grabbing Archer by the wrist, "I would recommend that we send – "

"Malcolm," Archer said, infusing as much warning into his tone as he could without sounding pissed, "I'm going." He turned to Kamea. "Just tell me how to recognize the Ferengi ship."

Kamea made a noise in the back of her throat. "Easy. It'll be the only other ship in the area."

He glared at her but didn't put much anger behind it. It had been a stupid question, really. But he was the captain, and damned if he was going to admit he'd asked a stupid question.

Malcolm and Trip helped him located an climb into one of the EV suits, while T'Pol and Kamea conversed quietly off to the side, no doubt complaining about the illogical actions of humans. Even though Kamea was half-human, she complained about humans a lot. Of course, she complained about Vulcans, too. Archer had been learning to tune her out.

When he schlepped over to the staircase and shambled down the steps, T'Pol approached him.

"Captain," she said, "you must hurry. According to my calculations, the alternative energy source on which we are powering our life support systems will only be operational for approximately another 1.96 hours."

"Actually," Trip said, appearing on the landing above Archer and leaning on the handrails, bracing his hands on either side of the staircase, "it's probably closer to one-and-a-half."

Archer rolled his eyes and looked at his science officer. Why did she bother to use the word "approximate" when her data was always so precise? Was being a know-it-all a Vulcan trait? "That isn't very reassuring."

T'Pol arched an eyebrow. "It wasn't meant to be."

While Trip hooked Archer up to the safety line, Kamea and Malcolm worked on shunting everyone out of the launch bay, because as soon as those doors opened, anything not bolted to the deck or bulkhead would be sucked out of the ship in nature's attempt to equalize pressure in the bay. Once everyone was safely out of the bay, including Kamea and T'Pol, Malcolm wandered over.

"Are you certain you want to do this, Captain?" he asked. "Wouldn't it be better if Commander Tucker or I – "

Archer silenced him with a look. "I don't like feeling helpless, Malcolm. I've got to feel like I'm doing something for this ship."

Malcolm sighed, but nodded – obviously not in the mood to get into an argument with his captain – and he and Trip retreated to the landing to open the launch bay doors. They strapped themselves to the railing with the same kind of safety wire that Archer was using. Archer gave the signal that he was ready and Trip opened the doors.

He was sucked into space immediately and, judging from the fact that no one followed, could only hope that Malcolm and Trip were still tied to the railing back in the launch bay. And thankfully, Kamea's assumption about the dampening field was apparently correct, because as soon as he was out of the ship, the systems in the EV suit began to work, including his oxygen. He released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and started to "swim" upwards – in an effort to see if he could find the Ferengi ship.

There it was, latched firmly to the ship's outer hull, apparently docked at one of the ship's three docking ports. Archer wondered how they had managed to dock without anyone on _Enterprise_ knowing. Perhaps they had docked during the power outage, when none of the sensors were working – but Trip and T'Pol had gotten the sensor back online momentarily, and nothing about a docking sequence had registered. How had they gotten onto his ship?

Archer stared at the Ferengi vessel, hoping that if he stared at it long enough, it would answer all of his questions. But the longer he floated there, the more questions popped into his head. So he did a somersault and "swam" back towards the open launch bay doors. Once he was close, he tugged on his line, which was Trip and Malcolm's cue to start hauling him back aboard.

When there was solid ground under his feet and the doors had been shut, he took off the helmet and glanced up at his chief engineer and armory officer. "Get everyone back in here," he said. "We've got some planning to do."

The rest of the crew was back in the launch bay in record time, attempting to stay away from the Ferengi, according to T'Pol. Archer called for a meeting with his senior staff – and Kamea, who seemed to know the most about the Ferengi. They gathered in a corner of the launch bay where they weren't likely to be overheard. Archer didn't want there to be a panic.

"They're docked at docking port A," Archer said.

Trip furrowed his brow in obvious confusion. "But how did they dock without us knowing?"

"Could they have a cloak?" Malcolm asked, looking at Kamea. She shrugged in response. "How could you not know?"

She shook her head and shrugged again. "They could have a lot of things. They steal things. They're thieves – that's what they do."

"Well, they're not going to steal my ship," Archer said, his voice firm. "We have to get them off _Enterprise_ somehow."

Kamea bit her bottom lip and glanced at him. "How did you get rid of them last time?"

"We played them off each other," Archer said. "Fed into their greed. I told them that we had a lot of gold in our vault, and they eventually started fighting among themselves, each of them trying to get the biggest share of the gold."

"Could it work again?" Hoshi asked.

Archer sighed heavily. This just wasn't his day. "I don't know. It could, but if they intend to take the entire ship, they'll search it. We might not be able to pull that one off."

There was a profound moment of silence for several minutes before Kamea grinned. "We could return the favor."

Malcolm gawked at her. "What, you mean take control of their ship?"

She nodded. "_Pono_. Captain says they're at docking port A. I say we troop up there, scope out their ship, see if we can't find the source of the dampening field, and turn the tables on them."

"One problem," Trip said. "None of us have ever been inside a Ferengi ship before."

Kamea looked pointedly at him. "None of you have ever been inside one." She turned to Archer. "What did it look like?"

Archer raised his eyebrows. It was an easy enough question, considering how long he had just looked at it – it was oval-shaped, with small fins coming out the side of it – but what did that have to do with anything? "Like an egg."

She nodded. "That's a C-class personal business vessel," she said. "They're the cheapest ships you can buy, so naturally they're the most common. And it just so happens I've done maintenance on C-class ships."

Archer's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. She really did know everything. "And when have you ever done maintenance on a Ferengi ship?"

Kamea rolled her eyes. "When I was working in a depository in the Helaspont Nebula."

"The Helaspont Nebula?" T'Pol asked. "That's approximately 29.725 light-years from Denobula Triaxa."

"Yeah," Kamea said, as though T'Pol had just stated that they were on a starship. But Archer got the feeling that T'Pol was explaining for the benefit of the others, who had not been to the nebula. "I know."

"What's a depository?" Trip asked. Archer was glad that his chief engineer had asked the question, because he didn't know either, but he'd prefer to not be the one that asked.

"It's like a giant space station," said Kamea. "One of the levels is a huge bank-like business, where people who don't want their stuff to be found keep their valuables, but there are a few restaurants, some shops, and an on-call maintenance crew. I worked there for a few months about six years ago."

Archer furrowed his brow. Kamea was more than willing to share anecdotes of her life on Earth, but when it came to the years since she had left, she wasn't very open. He wondered why that was, but knew better than to push. If she was anything like the other Vulcans he'd met, she wouldn't tell him anything. But he had to ask. "Why?"

Kamea blushed maroon all the way to her hairline. "I, uh, was working off a debt. I stopped there to replenish my dilithium supply, and I may have accidentally castrated the proprietor of the depository."

All the men winced and reflexively covered their private areas, while T'Pol cocked an eyebrow and Hoshi tried very hard not to laugh. She didn't quite succeed and allowed a giggle to slip through. "How do you accidentally cut off a man's…fun parts?" Trip asked, his legs still crossed as if to protect his groin.

"Hey, how was I supposed to know that a Robonian's reproductive organs are on his head?" Kamea asked, more than a little defensive. "Besides, he deserved it. He tried to molest me in the bar."

"And for that you castrated him?" T'Pol asked, her disapproval evident in her voice.

Kamea made a noise in the back of her throat. "Believe me, it's no loss to the universe if that creep can't reproduce." She licked her lips. "But that isn't the issue here. Now, do you want to go kick those idiots off of the ship, or do you want to sit here debating the moral dilemma of castrating a slime ball?"

Archer gestured for silence, which in retrospect was probably not the smartest thing to do, since it was still very dark in the launch bay, but it seemed to get the job done. "All right. We'll head up to the docking port. T'Pol, you lead and, Kamea, you bring up the rear. The longer we sit here, the better chance we're giving those Ferengi of gaining control of _Enterprise_, and I refuse to surrender this ship."

There was a silence, and then Malcolm said, "Jolly good, Captain."

* * *

**A/N: Thanks so much for the continued reviews!**

**_Pono _-- exactly**

**Many thanks to "The Complete Atlas of Star Trek" by Geoffrey Mandel and to the many online Hawaiian dictionaries.**

**I don't own the name "Robonia". I stole it from the episode of "Futurama" when Bender pretends to be a fem-bot so that he can win gold medals in the Olympics.**

**I have no idea how many docking ports there are on _Enterprise._ I also wasn't sure about the warp capabilities of the Orions. Was that ever mentioned? And remember, this is an alternate universe, where T'Pol was never sold at an Orion slave auction, so _Enterprise_ has not yet encountered the Orions.**

**And I don't like Archer. In case you couldn't tell.**

**I hope to have this updated again sometime within the next few days, by next Friday (5/27/05) at the very very latest. I'm almost done with my "Without a Trace" fic, so once that's finished I won't have to bounce back and forth between the two stories.**


	11. It's a Hibachi

**A/N: Really getting this in under the wire! Sorry about taking so long with this chapter, but my aunt was in town, and visits from her are always super fun. (That was sarcasm, by the way.) She was staying in the room where I keep my computer, so I couldn't do much writing. But she's gone now. Yay.**

**My inferior cable system DID NOT AIR the series finale of "Enterprise", so I have absolutely no idea when I'm going to get to see it. Although, judging from what I've heard, that's no great loss.**

**I typed this in kind of a hurry, please forgive any mistakes. I'll come back when I have more time and correct any that I notice.**

* * *

T'Pol was accustomed to the captain and the other human crewmembers aboard _Enterprise_ making rash illogical decisions, and although she hadn't thought much of Kamea at first, she had really never expected the half-Vulcan to be so impulsive, to be so irrational, to be so…well…to be so human. And Kamea's plan to "infiltrate" the Ferengi ship in an effort to discover the source of the dampening field seemed like something Captain Archer would have come up with, which might explain why he had agreed to it so readily, despite the fact that he supposedly didn't trust her. And the fact that the captain so rarely accepted T'Pol's advice.

Was that jealousy niggling in the back of her brain? She recognized it, but this was the first time she was experiencing jealousy that was not centered on Commander Tucker. It was odd and extremely disconcerting, but she had to take it for what it was. And she took point in their part with only a hint of reluctance, which of course was barely discernible from her normal expression.

She led the way cautiously, hardly paying attention to where she was going, but appearing to do so, which was all that mattered. It wasn't until Trip materialized at her shoulder that she became aware of just how distracted she was, as she hadn't heard him approach.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

He had always been perceptive when it came to deciphering her non-existent moods, and his ability to do so had only increased with the bond. She tried to clear her mind, to stamp down her emotions, but it was difficult to do in Trip's presence. It always had been. "No."

Trip flashed her one of those grins that she found irresistible, for completely illogical reasons. "Yeah, not falling for that. What's wrong?"

T'Pol tried not to sound irritated, but failed. "Nothing."

He cocked an eyebrow at her, which she found infuriating. Was it that annoying when she did it? "I know you don't think this is the world's greatest plan, but it's better than sitting on our Asses, waiting to suffocate." He paused, combing his fingers through his hair. "Besides, I didn't hear you offer up a plan B."

T'Pol huffed but could think of no argument. She hadn't offered any alternatives, because she could think of none and because even if she had, the captain would have ignored her suggestion. "There is still the possibility of a diplomatic resolution."

Trip shook his head, chuckling softly. "T'Pol, you've dealt with these guys before. You really think they're going to respond to that?"

"We didn't attempt any such action. We immediately resorted to the captain's plan of deceit."

He winked at her. "Which worked."

She folded her arms across her chest. "I am aware of that. But we have no way of being certain whether or not a diplomatic – "

"Will you two please shut it?" Malcolm's voice asked, from somewhere near the back of the line. "Honestly, the way you two are bickering, it's a wonder every bloody Ferengi on this ship doesn't know what we're doing."

"Put a sock in it, Malcolm," said Kamea, in a near hiss, from the very end of the line. "We can't all be as naturally perfect as you."

"Everyone, knock it off," Captain Archer said, falling into step directly behind Trip and T'Pol. He heaved a heavy sigh and rubbed his forehead, as though in pain. But T'Pol had long ago learned that humans sometimes did that when they were under intense stress, so she knew better than to ask if he was injured. "Maybe this was a bad idea."

T'Pol raised both eyebrows in poorly disguised shock, though the dim light in the corridors would have prevented anyone – save Kamea – from seeing it. It was the first intelligent thing that had been said all day. "I agree, Captain."

Archer shook his head. "I meant, all of us going was a bad idea. The fewer the better. So Kamea and I will go to the Ferengi ship, and the rest of you should try and distract them, keep them off our backs for a while."

Kamea – who, for her part, did not look pleased at the prospect of spending so much time alone with the captain, who obviously disliked her – merely nodded her acquiescence. The others agreed to split up in an attempt to located the Ferengi – Malcolm, Hoshi, and Travis would go to the lower decks while Trip and T'Pol, naturally, would take the upper decks.

T'Pol watched them go with apprehensions, as she was now completely alone with Trip, which was a place she had determined that she could not be. This bond they had, it was strengthening – not weakening, as she had originally believed. Ordinarily, some level of intimacy had to be maintained in order for the bond to grow stronger, and while their recent visit to Vulcan had been filled with intimate encounters, they had not indulged since the night before her wedding. Both felt that an extramarital affair would not be appropriate and had arrived at the conclusion that whatever had happened between them was best left in the past. It was the logical decision, and her head totally supported the idea.

But her heart – her previously ignored emotions – was a different matter entirely.

When she turned back to Trip, he was staring at her with an amused expression, which was even more infuriating than that cocked eyebrow. She narrowed her eyes. "Commander, do you find the situation humorous?"

Trip gave her a half-smile. "She's not going to replace you."

T'Pol resisted the urge to lift an eyebrow and instead wondered how he could possibly have known exactly what she was thinking. Since humans as a whole were not capable of telepathic connections, his ability to so accurately read her mind was uncanny. "That would be correct, Commander," she said, "as it is not possible to replace a sentient being in the same way that one would replace a malfunctioning warp coil."

"You know what I mean, T'Pol. You've got no reason to feel threatened by Kamea."

This time T'Pol did raise her eyebrow. He really was very perceptive. Yet how could he be so clueless at times and so incredibly observant when she didn't want him to be? "I in no way feel threatened by Kamea's presence aboard _Enterprise._"

He grinned at her. "Ah, but didn't we already have a conversation about vocal inflections? Do I even need to tell you that your voice is tensing up?"

T'Pol ignored him, turning abruptly and stalking off down the corridor, hoping to at least be able to pay attention to where she was walking, even if she didn't manage to detain the Ferengi. She vividly remembered the conversation to which he was referring, and what happened shortly after, but she couldn't think about that at the moment. After a few seconds, she heard Trip's familiar steps behind her.

"Are we ever going to talk about what happened between us?"

She was not in the mood for this discussion. In fact, she would never be in the mood for this discussion. "I was under the impression that we had agreed to not talk about our situation. That it was best not to discuss it?"

"I don't remember any agreement like that."

"It was an unspoken agreement."

"Probably why I don't remember it, then."

"Mister Tucker," T'Pol said, rounding on him and bringing him to abrupt halt, "are you purposely trying to antagonize me?"

"Nah. I'm actually not sure how to do that anymore. I mean, in the old days I would have badgered you about your age." He flashed her knowing smile and threw her a wink. "But since you already told me how old you are – intimate information, remember – it doesn't make much sense to do that anymore."

She narrowed her eyes and folded her hands behind her back. "I suggest we proceed with our assignment. It would be a shame if we failed in our efforts to delay the Ferengi."

Trip gestured that she should lead the way and then he fell into step behind her. They walked in silence, but she could feel his ever-constant presence in the back of her mind, lapping at the edge of her consciousness. She was glad that he wasn't completely aware of their fledgling connection. If he were, his distant presence in her mind would be much stronger – and much more difficult to ignore. As it stood, she could block his presence with very little effort, which was what she was doing at the moment. And he must have sensed the link being blocked, because he stopped and shook his head, as if to clear it.

She stopped as well, and tossed what she hoped was a concerned glance in his direction. "Are you unwell, Commander?"

He looked up at her, obviously frustrated. "Fine. Just a headache."

"When we are underway again, perhaps you should visit Phlox."

He grunted and resumed walking, rubbing his temples in a circular motion. "All I need is a stiff drink and a decent night's sleep."

She knew that what she was about to say was a bad idea, but she said it anyway. Perhaps she was picking up some of Trip's bad habits. "You're having trouble sleeping?"

Trip's head whipped around so fast that she heard his neck crick. "Oh, no. I know how that conversation ends. I'll be fine. I'm just under a lot of stress lately, with the upgrades and everything."

His remark strung, though she knew he hadn't meant it that way. "Kamea is more than capable of – "

"You're not the only one afraid of being replaced," Trip said softly.

"I am not afraid of being – "

"These engines are my babies, and I'll be damned if anyone but me is going to work on them."

"Commander, the engines are inanimate objects. They are no more your children than the captain's canine is his. Surely you should have no reservations about her assisting with your upgrades."

Trip raised an eyebrow and put his hands on his hips. "This is your subtle way of trying to get me to admit that I don't entirely trust her."

T'Pol pulled back in surprise. They way he had matter-of-factly stated that led her to believe that he had been thinking that for some time. If that were the case, he had done an excellent job of hiding it from her. She hadn't even been able to sense his animosity through the bond. "You don't trust her?"

He glanced sideways at her. "I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to." True, Kamea was quite a capable engineer, but even the fact that she was family did not stop T'Pol from having reservations about her reliability. They knew absolutely nothing about her past, or why she had kept saying "danger" while she was in hibernation. Clearly, she was hiding something.

He sighed. "I get it. It's not what I said, it's the way I said it." He shook his head. "All women really are the same."

She stopped, but he continued walking. She glared at the back of his head, wondering how she could invest so much emotion in a man who could be so callous and insensitive with her feelings at times. He hadn't gone far when he realized that she was no longer walking beside him. She felt his confusion wash over her and put up the barriers before he could sense what was wrong.

"T'Pol, are you okay?" he asked. "You've been acting weird for a while now. It's not just Kamea, is it? There's something else going on."

His voice was filled with so much concern that she felt her resolve crumble. How could one man be so many different things? It was highly illogical. She took a deep breath to calm herself and said, "It's nothing you need concern yourself with, Trip."

Trip stared at her for a long moment, then nodded. "All right, if you don't want to tell me, I won't push. But I am here, if you need me."

She did need him. But she couldn't let herself fall victim to that need.

* * *

Kamea didn't like the look of things. It was too quiet around the area where the Ferengi ship was docked. They weren't loading any goods onto their ship, which only served to prove that they did intend to take _Enterprise_ – and most likely sell it…and probably the crew. She vividly remembered her last brush with the interspecies slave market, and she wasn't anxious to relive that ordeal any time soon – or rather ever again. Damn that Wat. That was when she'd decided not to take him up on his offer for a drink anymore.

She shook her head to rid herself of the image and peered into the corridor that led to the docking port. Her mind was clearer than it had been all day, so she knew that the Ferengi weren't nearby. She nodded at the captain. "Come on. We're in the clear."

Captain Archer brushed past her to take the lead, nearly knocking her over in the process. She watched him in shock but narrowed her eyes, feeling that familiar rush of anger creep through her veins. She squelched it before it could manifest and followed him to the door, which was, of course, closed.

Archer punched the door in frustration, then shook his injured hand. "How the hell are we supposed to get in?"

Kamea cocked an eyebrow at him and went to a wall panel. She removed the panel and groped blindly for the little lever that was the manual door release. When she found it, she pulled, and the door slid open with a hiss. "Through the door," she said.

He did not look amused. "I didn't even know that was there."

She replaced the panel and walked cautiously through the open door and onto the all-too-familiar Ferengi ship, choosing to ignore the look of pure hatred that the captain was shooting her way, probably for knowing more about his ship than he did. "You've obviously never had to use it," she said, by way of explanation for his unasked question. "My mother was doing repairs on a J-class cargo ship one time, and a short in the helm caused everything to go off-line. The only way off the ship was to manually open the docking ports." Kamea paused, briefly entertaining the memory of her mother, before turning to face Archer. "This was before she got kicked out of Starfleet, naturally. It's logical to assume that option would be included on all Earth vessels."

Since she was the one with previous experience aboard a Ferengi ship, she led the way, but Archer followed uncomfortably close, at times bumping her elbow. The ship looked like a junkyard – or a flea market. Much of the empty space was filled with sacks stuffed to bursting and piles of various objects that had spilled and strewn themselves across the floor.

"Looks like my college apartment," said Archer, as the two of them carefully picked their way through the ship. "What exactly are we looking for?"

Kamea lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine. Just assume that anything bolted down in supposed to be here. We'll start there."

They decided that splitting up, while more efficient, was probably not a wise idea, given the circumstances, so they settled for taking opposite side of the same room. And they started on the bridge, because it made the most sense. Kamea settled behind one of the consoles, and though she was horrible at reading Ferengi, she managed, through trial and error, to figure out what the majority of the buttons did.

"Captain," she said, after fiddling with the console for the better part of ten minutes, "there seems to be a large power drain in one of the starboard cabins. It would be logical to assume that this is the source of the dampening field."

Archer, who had been crawling around, opening random wall panels, got to his feet. "Let's go."

The starboard cabin that contained the large influx of power was, quite surprisingly, empty – except for a large, black, mechanical something that looked vaguely familiar and strongly reminded Kamea of her mother's old grill.

"It looks like a Hibachi," she said.

Captain Archer shook his head and crouched down beside whatever it was. "No, this has to be the source of the dampening field."

But Kamea was certain she had seen something like that before, and it was completely unrelated to a dampening field. "Yeah, I hear you. It looks like a Hibachi." She bent down beside the captain to do her own inspection. "Man, what I wouldn't give for some of my mom's char-grilled sea bass right about now."

Archer glared at her. "Focus, Kamea."

She rolled her eyes but complied. She lay flat on her back and shimmied as far under the thing as she could go. She only had to pull apart one panel to realize why this thing was so familiar to her. She slid out and looked at the captain. "It is a Hibachi."

He just stared at her. "What?"

"It's the Ferengi equivalent of a protein synthesizer, only it's been modified."

The captain pursed his lips. "Can you shut it off?"

She got to her feet and folded her arms across her chest. "It's a highly technical procedure, but I think I can manage." And with that she reared back and kicked the synthesizer as hard as she could, sending it careening across the room, where it eventually shattered against the far wall.

Archer raised his eyebrows. "How scientific of you."

Kamea shrugged. "Never underestimate the value of a good kick."

"Do you think the dampening field has been lowered?"

She inclined her head. "Only one way to find out."

They turned around and came face to face with half a dozen Ferengi.


	12. Pointless Negotiations

**A/N: This chapter is a might shorter than the usual ones, but that's because it took me a week to get this far and I didn't want to leave y'ins hanging for much longer. I promise promise promise that this story is fast reaching its conclusion and apologize for the obscene amounts of time that have passed between updates. I appreciate that you guys keep reading!**

**Reviews make me happy! Please review!**

* * *

For a moment, everyone stood frozen. Archer could only gape at the Ferengi that stood before him, as though paralyzed.

But he had been in this situation before. He had been outnumbered, outgunned, outclassed, but he had always scraped through by the skin of his teeth. There was no reason to think that this time would be any different. He could do this. He could get through this. He had to. He hadn't come this far to let a few Ferengi beat him.

To his right, Kamea was just as still, most likely doing the same thing that he was – sizing up the situation. She wasn't very informative about her past, but he sensed that she had been in this situation before as well. And she had managed to handle herself earlier, on the bridge. Together, the two of them could do this.

Suddenly, and simultaneously, as if they had planned it to happen this way, Archer and Kamea attacked.

Archer charged the nearest Ferengi, barreling into his stomach and pushing him into the wall, while Kamea leapt into the air and kicked. Another Ferengi came at Archer from behind, but he crouched down and rolled out of the way. While he was on the ground, Kamea used him as a launching pad. It was like she was playing leapfrog – she braced her hands on Archer's back and catapulted herself into the Ferengi, knocking two of them to the ground in one pass. When one tried to sneak up on her, she went into a handstand, kicking him in the head on the way up. She launched herself backwards – an impressive acrobatic display – and landed on her feet several yards away.

"Captain!" she said, ducking just in time, as a Ferengi took a swing at her. She must have heard him coming. "Look out!"

He turned just in time to see more Ferengi coming at him. He punched, he kicked, and he fought his way through the mass of bodies. If he and Kamea could just get to the exit – if they could just get back to _Enterprise_ – then everything would work out. Everything would be okay.

But there were just too many of them. Even when he managed to land a punch, there was another Ferengi to take its place. They divided into two groups in an attempt to separate Archer from Kamea. It worked. He was physically drained and lacked the strength to take on so many at once. In a one on one conflict, perhaps, he could have prevailed, but not when it was three against one. One grabbed his arms and pinned them behind his back, and no matter how hard Archer struggled he couldn't break free.

Kamea appeared out of nowhere, seemingly dropping from the ceiling and bringing everyone down with her when she fell. How she had managed to evade her attackers was a mystery Archer wished he knew the answer to, but even her last-ditch escape attempt didn't do much good. Archer ended up on the bottom of the pile, pinned beneath Kamea and at least two Ferengi, unable to move.

"Enough!" said one of the Ferengi. "Tie them up!"

Kamea was dazed from her fall, but it took four Ferengi to subdue her; she wasn't about to be taken without a fight. And she put up a good one, but in the end, there were just too many of them. She'd said it herself – she couldn't handle seven at once. Archer went only slightly more willingly – after seeing the lengths they were going to incapacitate Kamea, he wasn't exactly all that eager to undergo the same thing. So he allowed himself to be tied up with minimal resistance, resisting the urge to laugh when Kamea spit in her attacker's face.

Just to be safe, they gagged her as well.

* * *

Hoshi, Malcolm, and Travis had just finished combing D-deck when the power suddenly and unexpectedly came back on. Everything clicked to life, and Hoshi had never felt happier to hear the low hum of the electric lights above them. She hadn't understood the alternative power source that Trip and T'Pol had created, but was relieved when it had apparently worked. But now it appeared as though the captain and Kamea had managed to locate the source of the dampening field and shut it down. Hoshi nearly squealed with delight when the dark corridor she, Malcolm, and Travis had been exploring was visible again. 

"Bloody hell," said Malcolm, looking around in awe as, one by one, the different systems switched on all around them, "they actually did it."

For a moment, they stood speechless, captivated by the seemingly mundane activity that was occurring – but for having very nearly suffocated on their breathing air, life support coming back online was anything but mundane. Then Travis spoke.

"What should we do, sir?" he asked Malcolm.

Malcolm was silent for another minute, obviously trying to come up with an answer to that question. Finally, he glanced up at Travis. "Let's get to the bridge, ensign. See where we stand."

They took the turbo lift, and Hoshi had to suppress the sudden urge to dance. No more climbing through those constrictive access tubes. Hoshi had developed a slight case of _claustrophobia_ after having to crawl through the ceiling when the Suliban had taken control of _Enterprise_. At least she managed to come through this ordeal with her clothing fully in tact.

Commander Tucker and T'Pol were already on the bridge when the three of them arrived. Both were hunched over T'Pol's console, puzzling over some data – no doubt trying to discover exactly how the Ferengi had managed to dock without being detected. Hoshi went automatically to her station and was surprised by what she found.

She turned to T'Pol, the most senior officer on the bridge in the absence of the captain. "We're being hailed."

T'Pol stood slowly, looking about as uncertain as she would ever allow herself to look, and strode to the middle of the bridge. She nodded at Hoshi. "Onscreen."

It was the Ferengi ship – naturally, as they were the only other ship in the area – and the Ferengi who was presumably the captain sneered at them from the view screen, baring his pointed teeth. Hoshi fought not to shudder.

"Prepare to surrender," the Ferengi said.

Malcolm quickly moved to his station and dropped into his chair. He glanced at T'Pol. "Hull plating's at maximum. Weapons are charged."

"You don't want to do that," the Ferengi said. He stepped aside, revealing the captain and Kamea, both bound and the latter gagged, propped against the wall. The captain was sitting still, hardly moving a muscle, but Kamea struggled against the ropes that bound her. "You see, we have your captain and his slave. Try and escape, and they die."

Kamea suddenly burst free from her restraints, but the Ferengi appeared to have expected this. They quickly scrambled to subdue her once more. Two grabbed her arms as she swung them wildly about. Two more grabbed her legs when she kicked one in the head. She wrenched her arms free long enough to incapacitate another one, and in the melee she managed to removed her gage, but before she could say anything, a Ferengi hit her in the head with a piece of machinery and knocked her unconscious.

Malcolm immediately got to his feet, and Hoshi could tell that he was seething. She got the feeling that it wasn't just because of the brutal way they were treating Kamea, but because they had so viciously attacked a bound opponent. Malcolm was a tactical officer, and he didn't like it when people didn't play by the rules of sophisticated warfare that had been ingrained on him since he was a child.

The Ferengi captain rolled his eyes and shook his head, looking very put out about the situation. "That one's going to be a problem. I can tell."

"You great sodding bastard," Malcolm said, in a vicious snarl.

"Lieutenant," said T'Pol. It was the only word she said to him, but the tone of her voice clearly conveyed that it was spoken as a warning. She turned back to the Ferengi on the screen, and Hoshi had never seen her look so furious. "What do you want?"

"Rule of Acquisition number 42," the Ferengi said. "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine, too."

Hoshi exchanged a looked with Travis. _Rule of Acquisition? What the hell is he talking about?_ Travis seemed just as confused as she did, so Hoshi glanced back at T'Pol. If T'Pol was confused, she didn't show it. She looked at the Ferengi. "You want our ship."

The Ferengi nodded. "Yes." He used his head to gesture at the bound captives. "But your captain has destroyed the dampening field, which was our only leverage against you. Until now. Come quietly, or we will be forced to kill your captain and his slave."

T'Pol paused only briefly before speaking. "Perhaps we can make a deal with you."

"No deal," said the Ferengi. "We have your captain. We have your ship. There is nothing else you have that we want."

"You do not want this ship," said T'Pol. "It is in need of serious repairs. We have lost the warp drive three times in the past month. It would cost a great deal to return it to a satisfactory condition."

Hoshi resisted the urge to smile. She couldn't believe T'Pol had just lied. But then, it wasn't exactly a lie – _Enterprise_ had been disabled three times over the past few weeks, but only because Commander Tucker and Kamea kept screwing up their experiments.

The Ferengi didn't seem to care. "Repair cost is of no concern to us. We already have a buyer. That's his problem."

Malcolm spoke up. "But surely your buyer won't be too happy when he sees that you've sold him a malfunctioning ship."

The Ferengi shrugged. "By the time he realizes it's broken, we'll be far away, counting our bars of Latinum."

"There is nothing you can offer us that is worth more than your ship," the Ferengi said. "It is pointless to negotiate. You have nothing to negotiate with." The Ferengi captain cackled maniacally, and the view screen went black. He had cut the transmission.

No one on the bridge spoke. Hoshi could only shake her head in disbelief. _How the hell are we going to get out of this one?_ Hoshi turned to look at T'Pol again, but the commander was the picture of serenity. She turned to Commander Tucker. "Mister Tucker," she said, her voice as calm and collected as ever, "get to the transporter room. Mister Mayweather, prepare to go to warp. Mister Reed, charge weapons." She whirled on her heel to face the view screen. "We are getting our people back."


	13. Plan B

Trip raced to the transporter. He couldn't remember ever having run so fast, but T'Pol's instructions had been implicit. He was to lock on to the captain and Kamea's coordinates and beam them aboard _Enterprise_ as soon as possible. There were several crewmen stationed by the manual release to the docking clamps, and Travis had already prepared to go to warp. Hopefully, they would be able to make the jump to warp before the Ferengi realized what had happened, and by the time they were able to do anything about it, _Enterprise_ would be light-years away. And if, on the off chance, the Ferengi managed to mobilize and chase after them, Malcolm had the weapons charged and ready and the torpedo tubes loaded.

It was a good plan – naturally, since it was T'Pol's – provided that everything went according to the plan. But there were so many things that could go wrong. What if the Ferengi ship was still docked with _Enterprise_ when they went to warp? Something like that had never happened before, but it wouldn't be good. What if he couldn't lock on to Kamea's coordinates to beam her aboard? Her biological signature was so unique that he might not be able to pinpoint her location on the Ferengi ship.

He tried not to focus on everything that could go wrong as he readied the transporter and waited for the signal. The rest of the plan depended on getting the captain and Kamea off that ship. And if he couldn't do that…

He waited for T'Pol's signal with bated breath.

"Commander Tucker." T'Pol's voice echoed in the transporter room, and Trip released the breath he'd been holding. "Begin now."

The transporter hummed to life under his hands as he worked the controls and tried to lock on to the captain and Kamea's coordinates. His fingers moved swiftly across the panel, but what should have taken seconds was taking far too long. Something was wrong. He got a lock on Captain Archer with no problems, but he was unable to locate Kamea.

He lunged for the companel. "Tucker to the bridge."

"Commander," said T'Pol's voice, and he could sense that she was concerned, "what's your status?"

Trip scrubbed a hand across his face and rolled his eyes, if only because T'Pol couldn't see him. It certainly wasn't her fault that the transporter wasn't calibrated for hybrids, but he needed to blame someone and it was just habitual to blame T'Pol. "Got a bit of a problem down here. I don't suppose anyone came up with a plan B?"

The concern morphed into agitation so quickly that Trip almost felt it, but he couldn't tell if it was T'Pol's agitation that he was experiencing or his own. "What is the problem, Mister Tucker?"

"Can't get a lock on Kamea," Trip said. He'd been meaning to do upgrades on the transporter for weeks now, but their experiments with the engines had pushed everything else from his mind. "What do you want me to do?"

It took so long for T'Pol to answer that Trip feared she couldn't think of anything, but after a longer silence than Trip would have liked, T'Pol said, "Very well, Commander. Report to the bridge. We will have to devise an alternate plan."

* * *

Kamea felt like her head was going to explode. There was a sharp shooting pain that she suspected had something to do with the large chunk of machinery that had struck her in the back of the head. She gritted her teeth and slowly raised a hand to rub the back of her skull. Except that she was still tied up. Damn Ferengi. She made a mental note to kick some Ferengi ass when she didn't feel like she was going to vomit if she stood up.

She opened her eyes and surveyed the scene. Sometime while she was unconscious, she and Captain Archer had been moved into some sort of makeshift holding cell. There was only one Ferengi in her line of sight, guarding the open door of the cabin in which she and the captain had been imprisoned, but as she was physically restrained, her line of sight was somewhat limited. She twisted in her spot on the floor and saw that Captain Archer was bound not far from her.

"Psst," she said. He didn't hear her. She inched her way along the floor, caterpillar style, until she was close enough to kick at him. "Captain."

The word came out muffled, and Kamea belatedly remembered that those damn Ferengi had gagged her, to keep her from spitting on them again. She growled in frustration and worked on the ropes around her wrists. They broke easily, and she removed the gag.

"Captain," she said, and he looked over at her. She cast a quick glance at their Ferengi guard to make certain he hadn't heard her before she turned back to Archer. "Please tell me you have a plan."

He shook his head, and she was momentarily dumbfounded. She had read all of _Enterprise's_ old logs, and the captain always had a plan. He was Captain Jonathan Archer, son of Henry Archer, for crying out loud. The logs painted him as some kind of superman. Now, granted, he had written most of them, but she got the feeling he wouldn't do all that much embellishing in his official logs. That was something left to personal logs – not reports to Starfleet. But even as a kid, he had been like that. She'd only met him once, so long ago that he most likely didn't even remember, but the kid told tall tales like she'd never heard – big fish stories that would have done her maternal grandfather proud.

She sighed. "Guess we'll have to think up one, then." She untied the ropes around her ankles, and then she set about freeing Archer. "Um…got any ideas?"

He just looked at her, as though he wanted to smack her – which was probably true, he wasn't exactly president of her fan club – then shrugged. "We can't fight them; there's too many. And we don't have anything to bargain with."

Kamea pursed her lips. The captain had a point – unfortunately. With no chance of fighting or negotiating their way out of this situation, there was only one thing left to do. She glanced at Archer. "I say we run for it."

He raised an eyebrow, and she had a feeling that little suggestion confirmed all his worst fears about her. "Run for it? That's your plan?"

She glared at him, feeling suddenly defensive. "Well, it's no dumber than any of the other plans proposed today." She pointed at the door. "You go. I'll follow. We'll take out the guard – that'll be easy, there's only one – and then we'll sneak through the ship."

Archer crossed his arms, looking very much like the petulant child she had met all those years ago. "This isn't going to work."

Kamea clenched her teeth, suddenly wishing her parents had been more open to violence as a problem-solver. "We don't have time to argue the finer points of retreat, Captain. You can stay here, if you want, but I'm making a break for it."

She got into a crouch and propelled herself backwards with a series of back handsprings until she reached the door. By the time she was back on her feet, the Ferengi guard had grabbed his flaming whip and was brandishing it at her. Kamea leapt up and kicked the whip out of his hand. The Ferengi took a deep breath, apparently preparing to let loose with an ear-splitting shriek, but Kamea rendered him unconscious with a Vulcan nerve pinch. When he was on the floor, she looked at Archer, who had gotten to his feet and was now crossing the room.

"Some help you were," she said.

Archer smirked. "You seemed to have everything under control."

Kamea used her head to gesture at the door. "Come on. Let's get out of here. The smell is really starting to get to me."

They worked their way through the ship, encountering no opposition. The Ferengi must not have considered the two of them to be a threat, with Archer tied up and Kamea unconscious. She grinned – mistake number one. Never underestimate Kamea's ability to regain consciousness. The last time she dealt with Ferengi, they had only tried trying her up, because she tried to stop them from stealing the schematics for –

Kamea broke off mid-thought, coming to a horrible realization. These were the same Ferengi, or at least some of them were, that had "battled" with her all those years ago. She'd been on the depository, working on recalibrating the transporter on a Klingon Bird of Prey – they wanted to be able to use the transporter at warp and she'd practically had to invent a new branch of physics to do it – when she accidentally walked in on a group of Ferengi purging the databanks of a Xyrillian star cruiser. They'd tied her up, but she broke out quite easily and went after them. She didn't actually manage to stop them – there were too many and she wasn't yet skilled with her abilities, but they caused enough of a ruckus that the depository's security team had showed up. The Ferengi vowed eternal vengeance but she chased them off using a spare piece of plasma tubing. It was only afterwards she discovered that the Xyrillians were working on a way to project a dampening field onto a particular ship. Funny, how she'd tucked that piece of information in a back corner of her brain, with the state flower of Wisconsin and the Fibonacci sequence.

She narrowed her eyes. Having never learned the names of those Ferengi – they weren't exactly forthcoming while they were tying her to a ventilation grate – she couldn't be certain if they were the same ones. All Ferengi looked the same to her. But it was too big of a coincidence to ignore.

She turned on her heel and began to stalk back through the ship, headed for the bridge. Archer lunged for her and grabbed her by the wrist, but she kept walking, throwing him off balance and onto the ground and dragging him behind her down the corridor.

"Kamea, stop!" Archer said. He braced his feet against the wall for leverage.

It felt like her arm was being wrenched out of the socket, but it served its purpose. She stopped and whipped around. "No. Now this is personal."

Archer kept a firm grip on her wrist, but he had to know she could dislocate his shoulder if need be. "You mean being attacked and tied up wasn't enough?"

She glowered at him. She really didn't like him. She never had. Even as a kid, he'd been a condescending prick, treating her like vermin because she had pointed ears. "You try spending six days in a Robonian holding cell because you walked in on a bunch of Ferengi robbing Xyrillians and you tell me that's not personal."

He looked, if at all possible, more confused. "What the hell does that mean?"

She was not in the mood for explanations at the moment. She yanked her arm out of Archer's grip with very little effort. "You can come with me or you can leave, but I'm not letting them get away with this any longer."

Archer grabbed for her again and missed. "You can't take them all by yourself. You even said that."

No. The thought was so forceful that it felt like someone else thinking it, but the humiliation she had suffered because of these thieves burned in the pit of her stomach. She had been in worse situations than this and gotten out of them, and Ferengi were notoriously poor and cowardly fighters. In fact, even using the word "fighters" to describe them was inaccurate, as most Ferengi didn't even let conflicts escalated to that point. They either bribed their way out of them or ran. This would bother her for the rest of her ridiculously prolonged life if she didn't at least attempt to do something to salvage her dignity.

"I don't care," she said. "These _kanapapikis_ are not going to get the best of me again."

She took off down the hallway.

* * *

Malcolm tried not to panic, but it was difficult. He felt largely responsible for the current situation. He was head of security for _Enterprise_, and he had allowed these Ferengi to sneak up on them, render them helpless, dock, board the ship, and capture two of its crewmembers. When this entire ordeal was over, he was going to request a complete sensory overhaul – upgrade everything, so that this never happened again.

But for the moment, he was in his element, planning a rescue operation. T'Pol's plan, while plausible, was contingent on too many outside factors to be successful. And as he explained to the assembled bridge crew, their best chance for rescue would be a direct assault.

"You want to storm the castle?" Trip asked, sounding incredulous. He was no doubt thinking of Captain and Kamea's failed attempt.

"We outnumber them eleven to one," Malcolm said. "It seems to be our most viable option. If we arm ourselves – our phase pistols will work now – we can take their ship with minimal force."

T'Pol was nodding thoughtfully, obviously considering Malcolm's proposal. She looked up at him, her brown eyes shining. "It is a logical plan."

Trip shook his head. "What if those damn Ferengi try and use the captain and Kamea as shields?"

Malcolm bit the inside of his cheek. He hadn't considered that, and he should have. He took a deep breath and exhaled it through pursed lips. "That's a risk we're going to have to take."

"Why don't we just transport the captain and leave Kamea on the Ferengi ship?" Travis asked. He was rubbing the back of his neck but stopped when everyone turned to stare at him. "I'm not saying leave her there permanently. It's just that the captain is a better bargaining chip. He's more important to _Enterprise_ than she is, and without him, the Ferengi will have lost a lot of their leverage."

Malcolm shook his head firmly. "No. No one gets left behind."

"Lieutenant," T'Pol said, "Mister Mayweather has a point. Without the captain, the Ferengi will not have as strong a position."

Malcolm balked at the mere thought of leaving Kamea with those things. How could the others, after having seen the way they treated her, even consider the possibility? He didn't like to leave anyone behind. To him, a mission wasn't successful unless everyone came back. He cleared his throat and glanced at Travis. "Let's call that plan B."

* * *

Archer debated the matter for only a few seconds before jogging after Kamea. He couldn't in good conscience let Kamea risk her life to free his ship without doing something to help, no matter how personal she claimed it was. And one of these days he was going to force her to talk about her past, just in case she had any more old friends lurking around the galaxy eager for a reunion.

He crept cautiously through the corridors, keeping an eye out for Ferengi, but he didn't run into anyone. Either no one had realized that they had escaped, or Kamea had already dispatched them. He was trying to decide which scenario was more likely when he caught sight of Kamea down the corridor, dragging a large sack full of…something…behind her.

He ran up to her and asked, as quietly as he could, "What the hell are you doing?"

She looked at him, and he could tell that she was trying not to smile. "So, Captain, you decided to join me."

He ignored her. "What are you doing?"

She gave him a look as though the answer should have been obvious. "Taking their cargo. I'm going to flush it out an airlock."

Their cargo? What the hell? The way she'd stormed off, he'd half expected her to hijack the ship, or kill everyone on board. And if she was going to be flushing anything out of an airlock, it should be those damn Ferengi. Archer was getting really sick and tired of getting his ass kicked on a regular basis.

"What did you think I was doing?" she asked.

Archer shook his head. This girl was going to be the death of him; he could tell. "You said you weren't going to let them get away with this. What did you expect me to think?"

She lifted one shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug. "If you want to get a Ferengi, you hit him where it hurts the most: the profit margin." She heaved the sack over her shoulder. "Grab a bag and follow me."

Kamea stumbled down the corridor and disappeared around a corner, presumably headed for the nearest airlock. Archer stared after her for a few moments, then grabbed the nearest sack and went after her. He hoped she knew what she was doing and where she was going, because he had absolutely no idea – and he had a very bad feeling about this.

He hadn't yet reached the corner when Kamea suddenly reappeared, running at top speed. "Don't just stand there!" she said. "Run!"

She didn't wait for him to respond, just took off in the direction in which they had just come. He waited only a split second before racing after her. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that she had apparently walked directly into a Ferengi. One was chasing them, wielding his flame whip. Archer picked up the pace, though he staggered under the weight of the sack of loot he was carrying. When a Ferengi appeared in the hall ahead of them, probably to see what the commotion was, Kamea swung her bag above her head and smacked him in the face. He collapsed across the floor, and Archer had to jump over him. The Ferengi that had been chasing them cracked his whip, which circled around Archer's bicep. He took a page out of Kamea's book and used the bag as a weapon. The Ferengi dropped like a ton of bricks, and the whip untangled as Archer ran.

The two of them made it to the door, but it was blocked by two Ferengi. Archer and Kamea both hurled their bags, slamming the Ferengi into the door. Archer hit the manual release, and the door slid open. He and Kamea leapt over the unconscious Ferengi and slid along the floor into the vestibule of _Enterprise's_ docking port.

Archer almost dropped to his knees and kissed the floor, but he didn't. He looked at Kamea. "We need to get to the bridge."

* * *

**A/N: _kanapapikis -_ sons of bitches**


	14. Belonging

T'Pol resisted the sudden, illogical urge to roll her eyes. She had a feeling that was Commander Tucker's frustration she was sensing, but she had to agree with his assessment. Lieutenant Reed was attempting to plan a rescue for the captain and Kamea, but so far they did not have a plan. Ensign Mayweather's suggestion of only beaming Captain Archer aboard and leaving Kamea behind made much more sense than anything the lieutenant was proposing, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she didn't care for the girl. Of course not. Because Vulcans didn't let emotions interfere with decisions. Ever.

Malcolm and Travis were "debating" the merits of their plans – meaning that they were arguing about which was better – when the door to the bridge slid open and the captain limped in. Kamea was right behind him.

For a moment, no one spoke. T'Pol glanced back at her fellow officers and saw that they were all staring with wide eyes and open mouths. She stepped forward. "Captain, I am pleased to see that you are unharmed."

"I wouldn't say that," Kamea said, rubbing the back of her head with a wince. She shook her head. "There's a bump. Damn Ferengi. Have I mentioned that I hate them?"

Captain Archer rolled his eyes. "Only every five seconds since we got off their ship."

"Well, I do."

Trip looked as though he wanted to hug the captain, but he wisely refrained from doing so. "Good to see you, Captain," he said. He gestured at Malcolm and Travis. "We were just planning your rescue."

Archer raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"You shouldn't have bothered," Kamea said. She was apparently speaking to everyone, but she was looking at T'Pol. "_Spunau bolayalar t'Wehku bolayalar t'Zamu il t'Veh._"

T'Pol hoped that she managed to hide her shock, but judging from the smirk that suddenly lit up Trip's face, he knew otherwise. She forced herself to keep her gaze on Kamea. "You would be willing to sacrifice yourself so that _Enterprise_ could escape?"

Kamea nodded. "Of course. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

Malcolm cleared his throat, and everyone turned to look at him. "I thought you said that you weren't ready to die."

She narrowed her eyes. "What, do you tape everything I say?" She groaned. "If you want to get technical, no, I don't want to die. No one ever wants to die. But sometimes you don't have a choice. And if it comes down to me or everyone else on board _Enterprise_, then for God's sake I hope you people don't pick me."

Archer nodded at Hoshi. "Hail our friends. Let's see what they have to say for themselves."

Ensign Sato seated herself at her station and set about doing what the captain had asked. After awhile, she turned to the captain. "They're responding."

"On screen."

The Ferengi that appeared on the view screen looked livid. He was screaming at them in what T'Pol presumed was his native language. After a few seconds, Hoshi had calibrated the universal translator to the Ferengi tongue, and the words echoing through the cockpit suddenly became English. They were…not pleasant. T'Pol could only make out a few words in between the foot stomping and the spitting.

The captain ignored the Ferengi's outburst and gestured that Kamea should join him in the middle of the bridge. "I'd be careful what you say to us," he said, as Kamea stepped up beside him, "if you don't want my friend here to inform the Xyrillians about what you've done."

She felt a burst of irritation and glanced at Trip. His eyes were narrowed, and she suspected that he was remembering the last time they had encountered Xyrillians, and he had been accidentally impregnated. She turned her attention back to Captain Archer, wondering what he was talking about and how this was supposed to help them.

The Ferengi, she noticed, had stopped yelling and was now looking at them curiously. "You know nothing," he said.

Kamea smiled. "Oh, I beg to differ. Now, I can contact them or you can do that yourself, but one way or another, they're going to find out that it was you who broke onto their ship and downloaded their databanks."

The Ferengi became, if possible, more enraged by this declaration. "That was you! The meddling Vulcan who couldn't keep her pointed ears out of other people's business!"

Kamea noticeably bristled after the Ferengi's last statement but, to her credit, did not respond to it. "It's really very simple, when you think about it. Either deal with us, or deal with the Xyrillians, but I have a feeling that they won't be quite so forgiving as we may be inclined to be."

The Ferengi raised his eyebrows and stared at Kamea, as though trying to determine her intent. "You're bluffing."

Kamea folded her arms across her chest, her jaw set. "Try me."

After several moments of silence, which her human counterparts would have no doubt deemed "tense" but did not make T'Pol anxious in the slightest, the Ferengi threw up his arms in surrender. "Very well. What do we have to do to ensure that you don't turn us in?"

Kamea looked to the captain. Archer stepped forward. "Undock and get the hell away from us. And if you ever come near us again, we'll blast you out of the sky."

The Ferengi scowled and addressed Kamea. "And I have your assurance that you won't tell the Xyrillians?"

Kamea shrugged. "Rule of Acquisition number sixteen."

He nodded. "A deal is a deal. Excellent." He turned around and spoke to his invisible crew. "Undock us from the Earth ship."

The view screen went blank, and Captain Archer turned to face Malcolm, who during the course of the conversation had taken his place at his station. Malcolm glanced up and nodded. "They've undocked and are moving away."

Archer patted Kamea on the back. "Well done, Kamea."

Trip chuckled, but T'Pol knew it was because he was nervous and not particularly amused. "Who would've thought, after everything, that blackmail was the way to go?"

"Does anyone else find that anticlimactic?" Hoshi asked.

"Don't complain, Hoshi," Travis said. "They're gone."

"Captain," Malcolm said, "if you don't mind my asking, how did you escape?"

Archer sighed and laid a hand on Kamea's shoulder. She flinched but did not pull away. "It was all Kamea. She's quite a fighter."

"Tell me about it," Malcolm said. But it was said under his breath, and T'Pol had the feeling that only she and Kamea had heard him. T'Pol raised her eyebrows at Kamea, who returned the look but said nothing.

"Kamea," T'Pol said, confused by the girl's silence, "what did he mean when he referred to you as 'that meddling Vulcan'?"

Kamea just stared at her. "Long story." She turned on her heel and walked across the bridge. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a call to make."

Trip grabbed her by the wrist as she walked past him. "You said you wouldn't tell the Xyrillians."

Kamea nodded. "That's true, Commander. I said I wouldn't tell the Xyrillians. I made no guarantees about telling anyone else." She gave him a small smile. "I have some friends who owe me favors."

She didn't wait for a response, yanked her arm free of the commander's grip, and disappeared off the bridge. T'Pol turned back to the captain, who had dropped into his chair and settled in for a long journey.

"Travis," the captain said, an illogically large grin on his face, "I don't care which direction we go. Just get us the hell out of here."

Ensign Mayweather nodded enthusiastically. "On it, sir."

T'Pol sat down at her station.

* * *

T'Pol went to see Kamea later that night, when most of the ship was asleep and only a skeleton crew remained to keep _Enterprise_ running. T'Pol had never been to the girl's quarters and had never seen a reason to, but she made it a point to stop by and inform Kamea how admirably she had performed that day.

She rang the bell and waited for Kamea's response.

"Come on in, T'Pol," Kamea said, and though T'Pol was only slightly shocked that she knew it would be her, she chose not to comment.

She walked into the room and examined it. T'Pol's quarters were Spartan by human standards but considered luxurious by Vulcan. Kamea's room resembled a human's, in that it was decorated, T'Pol supposed, in order to adequately reflect Kamea's personality. The shelf above the bed was full of Kamea's many books. The wall underneath was plastered with pictures, which must have been hidden inside the books. The blanket with her father's name sat at the foot of the bed, and her flowered necklace hung on the back of the desk chair, in which she was now seated, head on her arms, staring out the view port.

Kamea did not even turn to acknowledge T'Pol's presence. "Did you want something?" she asked. She did not sound annoyed, simply tired.

T'Pol stifled a sigh of exasperation and clasped her hands behind her back. "I wanted to tell you how impressed I was with your behavior today."

That made Kamea turn around. "How so?"

"You behaved as a member of the crew," T'Pol said. "These past few weeks, I have doubted your loyalty, since you are not a member of _Enterprise_. However, it seems that I have been mistaken. I apologize for the way I have been treating you since you arrived on board."

Kamea dismissed T'Pol's apology with a wave of her hand. "You were just being a Vulcan."

T'Pol raised her eyebrows. "You are half-Vulcan."

Kamea lifted one shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug. "I don't know what I am, to tell you the truth." She turned back to the view port.

T'Pol bit the inside of her cheek, a nervous habit she had adopted from Trip. "You used a word once that I believe applies now. You said _'ohana_."

Kamea's ears perked visibly, but she said nothing.

"According to Lieutenant Reed, it means that no one gets left behind or forgotten."

Kamea sighed heavily. "_Enterprise_ isn't my _'ohana_," she said, and her voice broke as she spoke. "Half of the crew still flinches every time I walk past them. They don't want me here."

T'Pol crossed her arms. "Your continued presence on board is the captain's decision. As long as he allows you to stay, they can say nothing about it."

Kamea grunted. "They can say plenty. Just not to the captain."

T'Pol pursed her lips and walked over to the desk, standing directly in Kamea's line of sight. "Commander Tucker dropped by my quarters earlier and asked me to look over some calculations. He said that you requested I double-check them."

Kamea laid her head on her desk but looked up at T'Pol. "I'm kind of sick of blowing up the engines."

"Indeed." T'Pol was tired of those accidents as well. "I discovered a mistake in the math, which I believe is causing the problem. I have corrected the error and returned the PADD to Commander Tucker. He expects you to be in engineering at 0800 tomorrow morning to begin the modifications."

Kamea nodded. "Fine."

Sensing that she was going to get no more out of Kamea, T'Pol turned to go. She paused at the door and glanced back at Kamea. Remembering her and Trip's conversation earlier, about Kamea's insomnia, T'Pol said, "I could instruct you in the ways of Vulcan neuro-pressure. Commander Tucker benefited from my teachings a great deal."

She expected Kamea to give her a sly grin or make some cryptic comment about her and Trip's bizarre relationship. But all Kamea said was, "No thank you. I'm fine."

T'Pol permitted herself a small sigh and left Kamea's quarters.

* * *

Kamea plodded into engineering early, having once again been unable to sleep. She yawned widely, leaning against the railing in order to keep herself upright. She knew what it must have cost T'Pol to offer a neuro-pressure session, and though she was sorely tempted to take her cousin up on her offer, she didn't want to drag anyone else into her problem. Although it would help in getting both Trip and Malcolm off her back.

She wandered through the engine room, looking for Trip, and caught the near-routine whispers that followed her everywhere she went. She turned in the direction of the voices and saw Crewmen Garner and Mendes standing off to the side.

"She creeps me out," Mendes said, examining something on the PADD she was holding. "I heard from Pearson that she can read minds."

Garner rolled her eyes and said nothing.

"It's bad enough we've got the Vulcans breathing down our necks as it is, we don't need them to be psychic, too," Mendes said, turning and inspecting the plasma coil.

"If she was a problem," Garner said, tightening the plasma tube, "Captain Archer wouldn't let her stay on board."

"I don't know why Captain Archer is letting her stay," Mendes said. "We should just drop her off at the next inhabited planet and be done with it."

Garner snorted. "You just don't like the way Lieutenant Reed looks at her."

Kamea cleared her throat as loudly as possible. When the two crewmen saw that she had noticed them, they stopped talking and blushed a furious shade of red. Garner gave her a pathetic wave, but Mendes turned her back on her and went back to the plasma coil.

Kamea sighed and continued on her way. Some things, unfortunately, would never change.

As she suspected, Trip was already there, eagerly running around like a young child on Christmas morning. He looked up when she approached, grinning broadly. "Good, T'Pol gave you my message."

Kamea nodded, swallowing yet another yawn. Apparently Trip's proclamation that she wasn't allowed back in engineering without a full night's sleep had slipped his mind in the wake of all the excitement of the previous day. "Yeah. So are we ready to start?"

They worked on the modifications most of the day, stopping only for lunch. They went slowly, both determined not to have any accidents or explosions during this round of experiments, and the only progress they made was that they managed to not blow up the engine, for which Kamea was grateful. She was spending more time in sickbay than she would have preferred.

After Trip's shift was finished, they went to the mess hall for dinner and noticed that there was a poker game in progress. Malcolm, Travis, Rostov, and Commander Kelby were seated at a table in the back corner – where Kamea generally sat if she was dining alone – each with a small pile of chips and a handful of cards. Trip walked over to investigate and, for lack of anything else to do, Kamea followed.

"Commander," Malcolm said, grinning, "care to join us?"

Trip laughed and shook his head. "Sure, why not?" He dragged a chair over from a nearby, empty table and plopped down. Travis handed him a stack of chips.

Kamea sighed and turned around, deciding that she would eat and then go visit T'Pol to see if the offer for neuro-pressure still stood, but Malcolm's voice stopped her.

"Kamea? Want to play?"

She turned back around. Rostov had pulled a chair in between himself and Kelby and was patting it invitingly, while Travis held up a stack of chips and Malcolm waved the deck around. She allowed herself a tiny smile. "I don't know…"

Malcolm scoffed. "Surely in all your exploits at school you played poker once or twice?"

She widened her grin. She had, in fact, played a number of times, but it had been years. Klingons weren't exactly into card games. "You don't mind?"

"Course not," Trip said. "Have a seat."

Kamea sat down as primly as possible, surveying the table with interest. "What are we going to play?"

Malcolm smiled and handed her the deck. "Why don't you decide?"

She cocked an eyebrow, sensing that the only reason they were inviting her to join their game is because they suspected she had absolutely no idea how to play and would be an easy target. But as she glanced around the table, she realized that none of them were staring at her as though she were a freak, and none of them had flinched when she sat down, and none of them were whispering about her to their neighbors. That knowledge made her feel infinitely better than she had felt earlier that morning.

She took the cards from him and nodded. "All right." She shuffled the deck several times, using some of the trick moves that her friend Bruno had taught her during sophomore year. She watched in delight as the guys' eyes widened. She began to deal the cards. "The name of the game, gentlemen, is Texas Hold 'Em. No maximum bet, nothing wild, blind ante."

Trip groaned and elbowed Malcolm in the arm. "Great idea, Malcolm."

* * *

**A/N: _Spunau bolayalar t'Wehku bolayalar t'Zamu il t'Veh -- _"The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few or the one." Courtesy of the Vulcan Language Dictionary. They rock my world.**

**I lied about coming up with a reason as to how no one had heard of the Ferengi in TNG. Actually, I didn't lie, but I couldn't figure out how to squeeze it in. I'll address it in the next book.**

**And so ends part 3 of the Kamea Chronicles. To be continued in part 4, "Secrets and Lies", which will be up after a brief hiatus. I'm going to do with that part what I did with the first 2, and have it mostly written before I start posting, so that I can update more frequently. But I had this written before my hard drive crashed, so hopefully it won't take too long to get it written. I'll try to have the first chapter up after the 4th of July.**

**Thank you guys for your patience while I spent forever finishing this! And thanks so much for the reviews! Y'ins guys also rock my world!**


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